Stuart and Tonya Junker loved their quiet neighborhood near the Black Hills of South Dakota — until the earth began to collapse around them, leaving them wondering if their home might collapse into a gaping hole.
They accuse the state of selling the land that became the Hideaway Hills subdivision even though they knew it was perched above a former mine. Since the sinkholes began opening, they and about 150 of their neighbors have sued the state for $45 million to cover the value of their homes and legal fees.
“Let’s just say it’s really changed our lives a lot,” Tonya Junker said. “The worry, the lack of sleep, the ‘what if’ something happens. It’s all of that, all of that at once.”
Sinkholes are common enough, caused by cave collapses, old mines or dissolved materials, but South Dakota’s circumstances are particularly unique, said Paul Santi, a professor of geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. The combination of sinkholes this large endangering so many homes makes the Hideaway Hills situation a case in point.
“I can say, just from having taught courses on historical cases with geological problems, that this would be a case that would end up in textbooks,” Santi said.
Tonya Junker via AP
Crews built Hideaway Hills, located a few miles northwest of Rapid City, from 2002 to 2004 in a previously state-owned area where gypsum mineral was mined for use in a nearby state-owned cement plant.
Attorney Kathy Barrow, who represents residents who live in 94 homes in the development, said the state sold the surface but retained the subsoil and failed to disclose that it had removed the soil’s natural ability to hold the surface.
Some of the land subsided slightly over time after the subdivision was built, and a hole opened up under a back porch, but the situation worsened after a big open chasm In 2020, a mine was discovered near a spot where a man was mowing his lawn. That prompted residents to contact Barrow, and tests revealed a large, poorly sealed mine beneath the northeast part of the subdivision, and a 40-foot-deep (12-meter) open-pit mine in another corner of the neighborhood, Barrow said.
Since that first giant collapse, other holes and cave-ins have appeared and there are now “too many to count,” Barrow said. The unstable ground has affected 158 homes and destabilized roads and utilities.
In one spot, an old truck can be seen in a hole under the porch of a house, still where a landowner pushed it into a mine cavern in the 1940s, Barrow said.
The area near the site of the 2020 collapse has been evacuated and fenced off, but people are still living in many other homes, usually because they cannot afford to leave.
Residents are panicked but stuck, Barrow said.
“They’re worried about school buses going to fall into a hole. They’re worried about their house collapsing on their kids in bed at night,” Barrow said. “I mean, you spend your whole life investing money and building equity in your home. It’s your most valuable asset, and these people’s assets have become not only worthless, but almost negative because it’s unsafe to live in.”
A state prosecutor declined to comment, but the state has asked a judge to dismiss the case.
In court documents, the state entities being sued said they “would like to express their deepest condolences to many homeowners” and called the formation of the sinkhole “tragic.”
However, the state argued that it was not the officials’ fault.
Tonya Junker via AP
“The real culprits in this case are the developer, the original real estate agent and the numerous home builders who knowingly chose to build on an abandoned mine while deliberately hiding its existence from home buyers purchasing at Hideaway Hills,” the state said.
In court documents, the state traced the area’s mining history back to the 1900s, mentioning a company that operated underground and surface mines before 1930. Beginning in 1986, the state-owned cement plant operated mines for several years.
The state has argued it is not liable for damages related to the underground mine collapse because the cement plant did not operate an underground mine and the mine would have collapsed regardless of the plant’s operations. Around 1994, a horse rancher bought the land and later sold it to a developer who discovered a deep hole, the state said in documents.
The state said it could not have known that the developer, homebuilders and county would move forward with development of the neighborhood, although they allegedly had knowledge of past mining and underground voids.
In 2000, the South Dakota Legislature approved the sale of the state’s cement plant. A voter-approved trust fund created from the proceeds of the sale totals more than $371 million.
For the Junkers, the trial is their best hope of escaping a nightmare.
Tonya Junker said her husband was set to retire this year, but now he has to work longer hours, holding down two jobs to save money in case they are evacuated.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow,” she said.
The Junkers have lived together in the neighborhood for 15 years, in a house built in 1929 and moved into the development as one of the first homes in the neighborhood. They gutted and remodeled the structure and plan to make the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home their retirement base.
Stuart Junker said he simply wanted to be paid the value of his house.
“It’s a little disappointing that the state doesn’t want to take care of us,” he said. “I mean, that’s their problem.”
