Black Hawk holeowners will have to stake their hopes for financial compensation for their losses to the hungry earth on their 75.5-million-dollar lawsuit, not Uncle Sam. Senator Marion Michael Rounds told them at the beginning of the month that the Federal Emergency Management Agency can’t hand out money in situations with pending lawsuits. The litigants graciously removed the state and current Meade County Commissioners from the lawsuit in hopes of accommodating some checks from FEMA, but last Friday, FEMA wrote a letter saying, no joy:
The letter cites three factors that make the families ineligible: the chance that the sinkhole may not be a natural event, that the sinkhole may have occurred due to negligence and that homeowners may receive other federal benefits.
“Information has come to light that this is not a natural event, and therefore the project would be ineligible for” the Hazard Mitigation grant, the letter says.
The letter does not explain what makes the sinkhole unnatural, but it may be referring to the man-made gypsum mine that impacted the development of the sinkhole.
“Even though the State and Meade County are no longer named in the lawsuit, regulations are clear that funding is not available if any negligence contributed to the conditions to be mitigated,” the letter says [Arielle Zionts, “FEMA: Black Hawk Families Impacted by Sinkhole Not Eligible for Any Grants,” Rapid City Journal, 2020.06.16].
It’s the pits that the undermined homeowners can’t get FEMA relief right now… but it’s also fair: if the developers, realtors, and local officials who put that Black Hawk housing development on holey ground bear responsibility for this mess, they should pay for their own errors, not pawn them off on taxpayers.
The “holeowners” have my sympathy. It would be nice if, upon winning the lawsuit, a chunk of the $ came from the incompetent/corrupt commissioners.
The Black Hawk holeowners could be poster-children for all the business-friendly Freedom™ Kristi Noem is touting to persuade people to move here. Promise people a government that will look the other way, and eventually, we all end up in a hole.
Live Free™ and Die.
This should be developer issue but prob protecting their own assets as we speak
There are several good photos of the mine in this FB post.
is.gd/krIbtq
i will hold the developers more responsible for this mess than county commissioners.they seem to get away with way to much and carry off a lot of cash.commissioners do certainly have some blame here, however newly elected people need more time to study these issues . i would also hold the state a lot more responsible as they tend to support more heavily developers who have it seems huge pressures to bring on commissioners to see things their way as i’ve found out having found this out by having to deal with the chamber people of rapid city on ellsworth air force base issues.
Hey, but the EPA did something right!
“Federal environmental regulators have fined Enbridge $6.7 million for allegedly violating a 2017 consent decree, saying the company failed to remedy pipeline-safety issues in a timely manner.
“Enbridge announced Thursday that it has settled with the Environmental Protection Agency and agreed to pay the fines, which were levied in May.”
is.gd/hJETnB
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