A massive sinkhole opened on I-80 in Wharton, NJ last December, and two additional sinkholes opened in the months that followed.
NEW JERSEY (WABC) -- 7 On Your Side Investigates is getting to the bottom of what likely contributed to the massive sinkholes that opened in New Jersey, despite not getting their questions answered by the Borough of Wharton mayor and council members.
"Obviously there's something going on in the area that should be investigated," said resident Elliana Dividu.
When a massive sinkhole opened on I-80 in Wharton, New Jersey last December, it shocked first responders and it worried people living inside Avalon Wharton apartments, a development just a few hundred feet away, especially after two additional sinkholes opened in the months that followed.
"If it was so deep in there and it's only 500 feet from our building, what makes you think the building is stable," Dividu said.
With a newborn baby at home, the mother said she couldn't sleep at night. When neighbors reported cracks in both the ceiling and flooring of the building, Dividu decided to move her family out of the area altogether.
"We were sitting ducks there, not knowing what's going on," Dividu said. "There's nothing more important than my piece of mind."
Sinkholes aren't new for this area
It's not the first time a sinkhole opened in Wharton.
Back in 2000, an old mining air shaft opened in the field next to the American Legion.
"We were deemed unsafe until the Bureau of Mines had to come in and investigate," said Lee Stickle of the American Legion.
It took months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to fill in the hole.
"They actually went into every inch of the parking lot, punching it and filling it with cement and grout," Stickle said.
Much of the area is built over abandoned mines that stopped operating in the late 1800s. In fact, an entire community nearby is named Mine Hill.
There's even an abandoned mine in the middle of the east and west bound lanes of I-80, according to New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection maps.
Planning documents for the community where Dividu lived also include maps that show numerous locations where mine pits and shafts used to be located.
The documents show how they planned and prepared the area for construction, by pouring "cement based grout" into vertical holes that were drilled down into the ground to stabilize the area.
What caused the sinkhole?
"That is certainly a viable approach to remediate an area," said Casey Jones, a geotechnical engineer which specializes in soil and rock.
He didn't work on the New Jersey project but he has worked to stabilize other mines.
"The question is, after all these decades, why are these sinkholes suddenly opening up," Jones said.
A spokesperson for AvalonBay Communities said they hired an engineering firm who conducted a site investigation. The report found "... no grounds to believe that the building is unsafe." And as for those cracks that residents reported, they "....do not appear to be recently developed and are consistent with the general wear of a building this age."
The spokesperson said they also hired a geotechnical engineer to establish a monitoring program and said "vibration monitors were installed and no unusual activity was detected."
The spokesperson also added, "Regarding ongoing concerns, our on-site team and our centralized Customer Care Center have not received resident or prospect inquiries related to the sinkhole in several months."
When Eyewitness News requested a copy of the monitoring report and asked whether they're still monitoring, the spokesperson didn't respond.
The mayor of Wharton also didn't answer our questions after repeated phone calls and emails over three months time and neither did council members.
The New Jersey Department of Transportation, the agency in charge of remediating the sinkholes along Interstate 80, did tell Eyewitness News what they believe likely contributed to the sinkholes in the first place.
A spokesperson said by email: "An exact cause of why the abandoned mine became unstable remains uncertain, however drought conditions over the past two years and the 4.8-magnitude earthquake on April 5, 2024-despite the area's low seismic hazard-likely contributed to destabilizing the subsurface environment, leading to roadway damage."
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