Stuart and Tonya Junker loved their quiet neighborhood near South Dakota’s Black Hills — until the earth began to crumble around them, making them think their home might collapse into a sinkhole.
He blamed the state for selling the land that was part of Hideaway Hills despite knowing it was on top of an old mine. Since the sinkholes started opening, he and about 150 of his neighbors are suing the state for $45 million to cover the value of their home and legal fees.
“Let’s just say it has really changed our lives,” Tonya Junker said. “Worrying, not sleeping, ‘what if’ something happens. It’s all, all of the above.”
Sinkholes are fairly common, due to collapsed caves, old mines or dissolved materials, but the situation in South Dakota stands out, said Paul Santi, professor of geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. The combination of such a large sinkhole is dangerous to many homes making the Hideaway Hills situation one to remember.
“I can say just from having taught the class about case history with geological problems that this will be a case that will end up in the textbook,” said Santi.
Crews built Hideaway Hills, located a few miles northwest of Rapid City, from 2002 to 2004 on land formerly owned by the state where gypsum minerals were mined for use in nearby state cement plants.
Attorney Kathy Barrow, who represents residents living in the subdivision’s 94 homes, said the state sold the surface but held it below the surface and did not state that it had removed the soil’s natural ability to hold the surface.
Some of the land has collapsed over time after the subdivision was built, and a hole opened up under the back porch, but the situation improved after a a large sinkhole was opened up in 2020 someone was mowing his lawn nearby. That prompted residents to connect with Barrow and tests showed a large mine that was improperly closed in the northeast part of the section, and a 40-foot (12-meter-deep) pit mine in another corner of the neighborhood, Barrow said.
Since the first giant collapse, there have been more holes and sinkholes and now there are “too many to count,” Barrow said. The unstable ground left 158 houses and roads and utilities unstable.
In one spot, an old truck can be seen in a hole under a home’s porch, still resting where a landowner pushed it into a mine cave in the 1940s, Barrow said.
The area close to the collapse of 2020 has been emptied and closed, but people still live in many other houses, mostly because they can’t leave.
Residents panicked but stuck it out, Barrow said.
“They’re worried about school buses falling into potholes. They’re worried about houses falling on their kids at night,” Barrow said. “I mean, you spend your whole life putting money into it and building equity in your home. It’s your most valuable asset, and these people’s assets are not only worthless but almost negative because they’re life-threatening.”
State attorneys declined to comment, but the state asked the judge to dismiss the case.
In court documents, the sued state entity said it “wants to express its sincerest sympathy to the many property owners” and called the sinkhole formation “tragic.”
However, the state said it was not the officer’s fault.
“The people who are truly responsible in this case are the developers, initial brokers, and many home builders who deliberately chose to build abandoned mines while deliberately hiding their existence from homebuyers who purchased Hideaway Hills,” the state said.
In court documents, the state traces the area’s mining history back to the 1900s, listing companies that mined underground and on the surface before 1930. Beginning in 1986, the state’s cement plant mined for years.
The state claimed it was not responsible for damages related to the collapse of the underground mine because the cement plant did not mine the ground and the mine would have collapsed regardless of the plant’s activities. Around 1994, a horse farmer bought the land and later sold the property to a developer who found a deep hole, the state said in documents.
The state said it did not know whether developers, homebuilders and the county would move forward with neighborhood development despite allegedly knowing about mining and land voids.
In 2000, the South Dakota Legislature approved the sale of the state’s cement plant. A voter-approved trust fund generated from sales proceeds of more than $371 million.
For Junkers, a lawsuit is the best hope of escaping the nightmare.
Tonya Junker said her husband was due to retire this year, but now she has to work longer hours, taking on two jobs to save money in case she is evacuated.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” he said.
The Junkers have lived together for 15 years in the neighborhood, in a house built in 1929 and moved to the section as one of the first houses in the neighborhood. They gutted and remodeled the structure and planned to create a three bedroom, two bathroom home base for retirement.
Stuart Junker says he only wants to be paid what the house is worth.
“It’s just disappointing that the state won’t take care of us,” he said. “I mean, it’s her problem.”