The first thing he and a few North Salt Lake neighbors noticed, back in early 1997, says Richard Johnson, was that springs that commonly bubbled up in their aptly named Springhill subdivision had dried up. Residents then began having perplexing trouble with doorways in their homes.
"We had to keep taking our doors off the hinges, shaving off a bit and putting them back up," Johnson said.Initially, homeowners suspected unusually high humidity. This was, after all, in May and June. "We thought maybe it was swelling from the swamp coolers or something," he said.
After a wintertime lull, the problems reappeared in the spring of 1998 -- and spread. The Johnsons discovered Sheetrock cracks and bowing of a basement wall. "At first I thought, 'I must have some bad two-by-fours in there,' so I tore off the Sheetrock." He found cracks in the foundation of the house he and his family had called home for 22 years.
Area residents began to compare notes.
"We were just puzzled," Johnson said.
But, after approaching city and state officials and following geological investigation, they were to learn the source of their problems:
An unsuspected and tortoise-paced landslide.
Landslide plague
Utah, says M. Lee Allison, director of the Utah Geological Survey, "is very vulnerable to landslides -- but the problems we see are as much political as geologic."
Landslide damage can pit neighbor against neighbor, neighborhoods against nearby enterprises, citizens against cities and counties, and homeowners against developers, builders, mortgage companies and insurers. Local governments have found themselves threatened with suits or in court for having permitted development -- and for not permitting development.
"It really depends on who's getting gored," Allison said.
When Mother Nature slips, flows or falls, many hope to pin responsibility -- legal or moral -- on someone else.
For various reasons, including a multi-year wet cycle and gradual encroachment of housing into landslide areas known and unknown along the foothills, rancor and controversies have been popping up all around the Beehive State. For example:
Development in much of Timber Lakes Estates east of Heber City is at a standstill until Wasatch County can investigate movement within and dangers posed by a collection of mountainside slides. Last summer, county planners stopped issuing building permits in portions of the 1,600-lot subdivision, first platted 30 years ago when geologic standards were low. That's about a quarter of the subdivision. Property owners have voiced concerns about lowered resale values, stymied sales and unadjusted property tax valuations -- as well as the possibility that they ultimately won't be allowed to build on vacant lots at all.
In Layton, the city and homeowners along Sunset Drive are at an impasse over what to do about a landslide that, since last April, has cracked one house down the middle and threatens another half-dozen in the relatively new Heather Glen subdivision. After studying the problem, the city proposed drainage and support systems, then asked affected property owners if they would participate in a special service district to pay for them; the homeowners declined. Layton, the residents said in public meetings, should have known about and warned them of the problem and should bear more of the mitigation burden.
Sparked by problems in its Sherwood Hills area along the northeast bench, the city of Provo is launching an extensive study of landslide, earthquake and other geologic hazards. Sherwood Hills sits on a substantial prehistoric landslide complex that has witnessed chronic slippage since the 1980s, claiming one house and damaging roadways and other expensive homes-with-a-view. Many lot owners have battled the slide on their own, installing anchor systems and retaining walls.
Additional trouble spots dot the state, often on coveted hillsides with outstanding views or pleasant surroundings -- South Weber, Davis County, Salt Lake City's City Creek area, Provo Canyon and other places, rural and urban, from Honeyville to Springdale.
Timber Lakes, for instance, is but one of five Wasatch County areas giving officials and property owners headaches, from Hailstone Estates to upper Provo Canyon's Canyon Meadows, said Bob Mathis, the former county planner, now the area's Olympics coordinator. Conflicts have resulted in angry exchanges and lawsuits -- as well as cooperation.
No one, it seems, enjoys hearing about the potential hazards, let alone experiencing the real thing. They don't like to be told their dream home site, perhaps on a $100,000 lot, is on a landslide or that if damage is occurring there's not much a city can do about it.
"And when you find that out, you're not very happy," said Gary Christenson, UGS applied geology program manager.
Under pressure
North Salt Lake's Springhill slide belies the image of a great tongue of mud and debris lolling down a hillside. This landslide, virtually invisible on the surface, manifests itself via the cracks and bulges it is causing while creeping beneath and tugging at rigid houses, driveways and curbing.
Johnson said his house, being pushed from behind, is trying to fold over the horizontal barrier presented by the concrete of his garage and driveway.
His neighbor, Dauneen Abel, pointed out buckling walls, cracked ceilings and doorways askew in her residence. "The whole house is just kind of tipping over," she said. "It's pretty depressing -- major depressing."
The slide has been quiescent lately, "but it still moves a little during the winter months, about 1/16th of an inch per month," Johnson said. "Then in the springtime, it can move an inch and a half during May and June; that's what happened the last two years."
So as the weather improves, Springhill residents are holding their collective breath.
"Our slide is triggered by water in the sublayers of the soil," Johnson has learned. A clay layer some 45 feet down is saturated; material atop that is sliding over it.
Many residents, including Johnson, still believe a nearby Concrete Product Co. gravel pit operation was probably the source of their woe, though city officials and engineers aren't so positive.
The landslide "is going away from and not into the pit," noted city manager Collin Wood.
However, "in April-May of '97, the springs in our back yards dried up," Johnson said, "and it was exactly the same time that they started excavating gravel out of the gravel pit for the I-15 project."
He and others believe that instead of surfacing in springs, the groundwater seeped down to the clay, lubricating the soil upon which many houses are located.
Ironically, the usable gravel supply in the upper pit expansion has been exhausted; another subdivision has been proposed for the site, Johnson said.
About a dozen homes have been affected by the landslide, some much worse than others. Those in the middle are just riding along. One, on a bluff just above his own, has been condemned but is still propped up and standing.
"It's just an eyesore to the neighborhood," Johnson said.
Sidewalks and driveways have taken on an indented pattern where they meet the street. Half of his own home is cracked and tilting, though still usable, and perhaps eventually can be repaired.
"We've lived here for 23 years," Johnson said. "It was new. Our neighbor right next door has been here 23 years also. And there was no damage, no movement -- nothing at all 'til the spring of '97."
Monday: The blame game