Growing sinkhole raises concerns of Gig Harbor homeowner

For 50 years Nancy Copeland has lived in the house her father built for her as a wedding present on the property she purchased in 1966.

Copeland, 73, has seen many changes on her property in the last five decades but the newest change is the most disturbing to her.

A sinkhole, which currently measures about 4 by 8 feet, has been developing in her front yard for the past 20 years and it’s only getting worse.

“I live in fear,” Copeland said. “It’s so gradual. It didn’t happen overnight.”

She first noticed the low spot in her lawn while using her riding lawnmower two decades ago. The dip was noticeable because, after having several trees removed from her property in 1995, she had leveled the area to fix the damage caused by the tree removal.

Fifteen years ago, she removed the sod over the sinking area and filled in the dip with a truckload of dirt and gravel.

Three years later the dip was back and the process was repeated.

Copeland is at a loss to explain the continued low spot.

“Where does it go?” she wondered aloud about the truckloads of filler she used in an attempt to level her yard again.

Her last attempt to fill the growing hole in her yard was to have it filled with large rocks, recently removed from another project on her five acres. But, to the amazement of Copeland’s family, these boulders are also sinking.

“It’s become something of a joke because all these rocks keep getting shorter and shorter,” said Heidi Sandoval, 36, Copeland’s daughter.

But the family is not amused by the changes they are seeing to Copeland’s home.

“My house is changing,” Copeland said. “It scares me, the dampness that’s coming in. I’ve done everything I can do to keep water away from my house.”

Years ago Copeland had installed pipes to divert water from her uphill fields away from her house and into an unused corner.

Similarly, she installed three drains between her house and the sinkhole to divert water away from the house and downhill into her orchard.

“There’s never been any water on the surface,” Copeland stated. “It’s deeper than that.”

She went to investigate during the recent winter rainstorms that occurred at the end of November and found the ditch outside her property empty of the flooding water she would have expected. However, the rains caused the sinkhole to finally collapse, opening a four foot square hole into which Copeland could see water flowing constantly from the direction of the nearby utility pole.

Copeland believes that there is underground water that is coming from uphill, flowing under the road and being diverted into her property by a utility pole installed by Peninsula Light Company 20 years ago. She believes this new utility pole, which replaced a smaller utility pole in the same spot, is the cause of the sinkhole due to it diverting underground water into her property.

Copeland contacted Peninsula Light Company to discuss her concerns regarding the utility pole, and spoke with Ben Wilson, engineer operations manager.

Wilson said that he had been in contact with Copeland for about a month regarding the sinkhole on her property.

“We explained to Ms. Copeland that a sinkhole on her property is her responsibility to figure out what caused it,” Wilson said.

Wilson and Peninsula Light crews have examined the utility pole and asked that the drainage ditch be examined by Pierce County officials.

Paul Burg, field supervisor for Pierce County Road Operations, oversaw a project which strengthened and increased the capacity of the ditch adjacent to the road outside Copeland’s house.

“We did the ditching to make sure we weren’t conveying any water (from the road),” Burg said. “We just want to make sure our water and her ditch line was moving past and not contributing to the (sinkhole) problem.”

Because the sinkhole is on private property, the county has done all it can to help Copeland with the problem, Burg said.

Jonathan White, director of member services and marketing for Peninsula Light, said the company has been doing what it can to put Copeland in contact with resources to help her with the problem.

“We’ve told (Copeland) there’s no correlation between our pole and what’s going on with her property,” White said. “We don’t see the connection.”

Pen Light’s recommendation to Copeland is to contact a geotech firm to investigate the cause of the sinkhole and to contact Pierce County’s Surface Water Management department.

“They’re all so understanding,” Copeland said of the people she’s been in contact with. “(But) nobody will take responsibility for (the sinkhole).”

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 3:11 PM with the headline "Growing sinkhole raises concerns of Gig Harbor homeowner."