Stuart and Tonya Junker loved their quiet neighborhood near the Black Hills of South Dakota—until the earth began to collapse around them and they wondered if their house might fall into a gaping hole.
They blame the state for selling off land that became the Hideaway Hills neighborhood, despite knowing it was over an old 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,” Tonya Junker said. “The worry, the not sleeping, the ‘what if’ something happens. It’s everything, everything above.”
Sinkholes are fairly common, from cavern collapses, old mines or dissolving material, but the conditions in South Dakota are unusual, says Paul Santi, a professor of geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. The combination of such large sinkholes endangering so many homes makes the situation in Hideaway Hills unforgettable.
“I can say just from the lessons I’ve taught on cases involving geological problems that this is a case that will end up in the textbooks,” Santi said.
Tonya Junker via AP
From 2002 to 2004, crews built Hideaway Hills, located a few miles northwest of Rapid City, on a previously state-owned site where the mineral gypsum was mined for use in a nearby state-owned cement plant.
Attorney Kathy Barrow, who represents residents of 94 homes in the development, said the state sold the surface but kept the subsoil. The state also failed to disclose that the soil lost its natural ability to support the surface as a result.
Some of the land subsided slightly over time after the subdivision was built, and a hole appeared under a back porch, but the situation escalated after a large sinkhole opened in 2020 near where a man was mowing his lawn. That prompted residents to contact Barrow, and testing revealed a large, unsealed mine beneath the northeast portion of the neighborhood, and a 40-foot-deep (12-meter-deep) pit mine in another corner of the neighborhood, Barrow said.
Since that first massive collapse, more holes and sinkholes have opened up, and there are now “too many to count,” Barrow said. The unstable ground has affected 158 homes, plus destabilized roads and utilities.
In one spot, an old truck can be seen in a hole under a house’s porch. It still sits where a landowner pushed it into a mine in the 1940s, Barrow said.
The area around the 2020 collapse has now been evacuated and sealed off, but many of the other homes are still occupied, mostly because they cannot afford to leave.
According to Barrow, residents are panicking but trapped.
“They’re worried about school buses falling into a hole. They’re worried about their houses collapsing on their kids in their beds 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 property had become not only worthless, but almost negative because it was dangerous to live in.”
A lawyer for the state declined to comment, but the state has asked a judge to dismiss the case.
In court documents, the government agencies suing said they would like to extend “their sincere condolences to many of the property owners” and called the sinkhole’s formation “tragic.”
However, the state argued that it was not the officials’ fault.
Tonya Junker via AP
“Those who are truly liable in this case are the developer, the original realtor, and the many homebuilders who deliberately chose to build on an abandoned mine and purposefully concealed its existence from the homebuyers who purchased homes in Hideaway Hills,” the state said.
In court documents, the state indicated that the area’s mining history dates back to the 1900s. A company was noted as mining both underground and above ground prior to 1930. The state-owned cement plant operated for several years beginning in 1986.
The state claimed it was not liable for damages related to the underground mine collapse because the cement plant did not mine underground and the mine would have collapsed regardless of the plant’s activities. Around 1994, a horse rancher bought the land and later sold it to a developer who came across a deep hole, the state said in documents.
The state said it could not have known that the developer, homebuilders and the county would proceed with development of the neighborhood, despite reportedly knowing about the past mining and underground spaces.
In 2000, the South Dakota Legislature approved the sale of the state’s cement plant. A voter-approved trust fund created from 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 supposed to retire this year, but now he has to work longer hours. He is working two jobs to save money in case they are evacuated.
“That’s a bitter pill to swallow,” she said.
The Junkers have lived together in the neighborhood for 15 years, in a house built in 1929, and were among the first to move into the neighborhood. They gutted and renovated the building, planning to make the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home their retirement base.
Stuart Junker said he simply wants to be paid what his house is worth.
“It’s just a little disappointing that the state won’t take care of us,” he said. “I mean, this is their problem.”
