Spots in Scott City sinking

David Ramsey isn't sure what's going on with his house. All he's sure of is that "settling" is not the problem.

"This house has been here for years. If it was going to settle, it would have already settled," Ramsey said. "New houses settle."

In the six years since he's lived in the Cloverdale subdivision at Scott City, his home has been wracked by problems -- cracks in the home's exterior brick walls, cracks in his driveway, cracks in his basement. Where the home's garage door and the concrete slab that makes up the garage floor used to meet, they're now separated by inches of space. His back patio is now separated from the brick of his exterior walls by several inches. The problems seemed to accelerate in the past two years, Ramsey said, even though the home is decades old.

His insurance company wouldn't cover the damage, calling it a result of "settling." Ramsey thinks the problems come from something else -- possibly a sinkhole.

"There's something wrong here," Ramsey said.

The cracks in the walls of David Ramsey's house are just one of the things that is wrong with his house at the intersection of Wheeler and Susan streets in the Cloverdale subdivision of Scott City. (Diane L. Wilson)

Ramsey isn't alone in his troubles. In the area surrounding his house at the intersection of Wheeler and Susan streets, several of his neighbors are experiencing similar problems -- cracks on walls inside and outside homes, cracked driveways, exterior concrete slabs that have fallen several inches and leaky basements, among others.

Marsha and Earl Fehr live nearby and have patched up problems with their home several times. A large interior dining/living area was recently remodeled to fix cracks, and 15 years ago the brick exterior was rebuilt to fix cracks.

The Fehrs built the house 27 years ago. Marsha Fehr said her husband keenly tracked every step of the building process to make sure things were done right.

"I know it's not the construction of our home," she said.

With the number of people in the area experiencing similar problems, construction may not be the issue.

The concrete slab of the driveway at David Ramsey's house in Scott City has sunk several inches.

Homeowners aren't the only ones dealing with the consequences, either.

Layer after layer

Wheeler Street, on the far western edge of town, represents an ongoing public works nuisance for the city government. Over the years a section of the road has continued to sink, like Ramsey's garage and patio. Layer after layer of asphalt has been put over the road to patch the sinking, but now the pavement has built up too high -- an estimated foot above the ground level where it meets Ramsey's property.

Mayor Tim Porch said the city can't continue to patch the road, as has been the practice for an unknown number of years. So now the city has plans to find another fix, one that may involve cutting out a section of the pavement and putting rock fill down instead.

In the long run, though, the solution may be even more complex -- such as more flexible streets made of concrete instead of asphalt, or piers that anchor the road to the bedrock.

Porch said the city can't do much to identify or alleviate the homeowners' problems -- which may or may not be tied to the public works dilemma that is Wheeler Street. What the city may be able to do is shed some light on what phenomenon is causing the sinking in the area.

A few years ago, the city took samples from two spots along the roughly 50-foot-long problem area of Wheeler Street. What they found was a layer of unstable clay beneath the topmost layer of good soil. City administrator Ron Eskew said that doesn't mean the layer of clay is responsible for the sinking street or the homeowners' troubles. However, it's the best lead the city has.

"We're all guessing at what it could be," Eskew said.

Bill Duley, a geologist for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said a sinkhole likely isn't the cause of the problem because they're rarely found in this area of the state. Instead there are two possible causes: groundwater withdrawal and clay, and the first can make the second worse.

Duley said clay has a tendency to shrink when it's dry, and the area has experienced a couple of dry years. That could explain the acceleration Ramsey has seen in the problems at his home.

The clay may be what's breaking apart the houses in the area. However, Porch said not all houses in the Cloverdale subdivision experience the problems.

"It seems like these are isolated sink areas," Porch said. "Some people out there don't have any problems. Their driveways might be cracked a little bit, but their basements are in good shape."

Meanwhile, others who are blocks away experience problems similar to those Ramsey and his immediate neighbors have encountered. Police chief Don Cobb's foundation cracked twice before he finally had to pay to have piers installed deep beneath his basement floor. He lives several blocks away, close to Interstate 55. Since the piercing, his troubles haven't resurfaced.

The Cloverdale subdivision was developed starting in the mid-1970s by developers Benny Wheeler and Frank Steck and was annexed into the city in 1974. Wheeler declined to comment, and Steck's number was not listed.

Neither the homeowners nor the city blame the developers for today's problems -- they don't know who or what to blame.

Porch said the city's best estimate is that the geology of the area is somehow responsible.

"I don't know what it's going to take," Porch said. He wonders if there might be veins of the problem soil beneath the ground in the western part of the city -- the only area of town that has experienced these problems.

Right now the city government's concern is to find a permanent fix for Wheeler Street itself, not a temporary patch. Patching up problems has been a philosophy of the city government for years -- water line breaks, sewer line breaks and other problems have been fixed temporarily instead of for the long term, Porch said.

"You don't fix the problem, you just cover it up," Porch said of past practices. "But it's time to quit that, it's time to fix it. In the past that might have been cost-prohibitive, I don't know.

"The Band-Aid approach in this town, we're not doing it anymore."

Scott City's public works department put another asphalt overlay on Wheeler Street's problem area before winter came, and the city will see how the overlay holds up over the cold months.

If spring comes and the problems still exist, Porch said, Wheeler Street will be a top priority, one which may require the expertise of a professional engineer.

If the solution requires somehow rebuilding the street, that could lead to new headaches for homeowners whose driveways could be damaged. They'll also have to deal with getting in and out of their homes while work is underway.

And fixing the street will do nothing to fix their homes. Ramsey said he's gotten estimates that it will cost about $20,000 to fix his home. What the city finds may be able to help him understand what's causing his home to sink, but the knowledge won't help him with the cost.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182