The Third Street Sinkhole, which opened on January 26 between Elm and Harbor Road and has since expanded to approximately 40 feet in diameter, is undergoing partial repair work this week. The work is being performed by the Rat Coalition, a governing body established in late February by the rat population of New Newmanton, which has maintained a consistent presence at the crater's perimeter since the sinkhole's first week of existence.

The Coalition, which operates under a rotating chairmanship and holds weekly votes on repair priority, has so far filled approximately six feet of the sinkhole's eastern wall using compacted soil and reclaimed aggregate. It has also reinforced three sections of the crater rim that Public Works Director Alan Marsh had described, in his most recent weekly update, as "under active monitoring" — a phrase The New Newmanton News has noted Marsh has used in each of his four weekly updates on the sinkhole.

CITY'S CAUTIOUS RESPONSE

Marsh, reached Thursday, said his department was "aware of the activity" and was "monitoring the situation closely." When asked whether the city planned to coordinate with the Coalition or assume responsibility for any repairs the Coalition had already completed, Marsh said the question was "above my pay grade in a technical sense."

The office of Commonwealth Attorney General Sandra Pryce issued a brief statement noting that the Rat Coalition occupies what it described as "a legally interesting position," given that the AG's office had previously argued in federal filings that the sinkhole itself exists outside any recognized jurisdiction by virtue of being below ground level.

"If the sinkhole is in no jurisdiction," the statement read, "then the entities operating within it may be similarly ungoverned, which may or may not confer standing."

The statement did not indicate whether this was an obstacle or an advantage, and closed with the phrase "further review is warranted." The AG's office's original jurisdictional argument was advanced in response to competing federal and municipal claims over who bore responsibility for filling the crater.

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MAYOR'S SKEPTICISM

Mayor Clifton Reeves, speaking at an unrelated ribbon-cutting for a parking structure on Harbor Road, called the Coalition's repairs "completely unauthorized" and suggested the situation had "the fingerprints of the Restorationists all over it." He did not elaborate. When a reporter noted that the Restorationist Alliance is a human civic organization and the Rat Coalition is comprised of rats, Reeves said, "That's exactly the kind of thing they'd want you to think."

Doreen Plaskett, spokesperson for the Third Street Rat Coalition — a separate human civic group that named itself after the rats in January and has no formal relationship with them — said she found the development "validating, mostly." Her group had previously secured a small load of gravel for the site, which the Rat Coalition incorporated into its repair work without acknowledgment. "We're choosing to view that as a collaboration," Plaskett said.