A mobile home park on the Pala Band of Mission Indians reservation has been ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to fix problems with its broken drinking water and sewer systems that may have caused drinking water to be contaminated with fecal matter and disease-causing organisms.
Pala Environmental Department found a faulty septic system that caused untreated human sewage to regularly be emitted on the property’s soil during inspections of the Lee Bar Ranch mobile home park between January and May. There was also low water pressure and water flow reversal due to a broken drinking water line connected to the underground water source on the property, according to an EPA statement Monday.
The drinking water system hadn’t registered with the EPA, and the mobile home park is not in compliance with monitoring and reporting regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The sewer and water systems at the privately owned mobile home park serve about 90 residents, who have been issued a warning to boil water.
In a emailed statement Monday, the EPA wrote that the systems “present a danger to the residents of the park.”
“Through this order, EPA is ensuring that the water system is properly operated to provide the mobile home park residence safe drinking water,” said John Busterud, EPA Pacific Southwest regional administrator, in the statement. “We will be actively engaged with the system, community and Pala Band of Mission Indians until the system returns to compliance.”
The mobile home park is not owned by the tribe, so the Pala Environmental Department has worked with the EPA to get the owners to comply with water safety regulations.
“We are very pleased that the EPA has taken action on these dangerous violations to water quality and environmental safety that we have been attempting to remedy for a very long time,” Pala Band spokesman Doug Elmets said via email. “We hope this finally gets the attention of the Upstate New York property owners, Kristin and Jim Nichols, and forces them to clean up their property and comply with safe drinking water laws.”
The EPA’s order means the mobile home park owners must inform residents to boil water. The owners must also review its water and wastewater infrastructure to be able to find and fix problems, and test its water system in several places for total coliform bacteria.
The owners have seven days to identify a qualified technical provider to assess corrective actions that are necessary to minimize health risks for residents. If the owners don’t comply with the order, they can receive a penalty of up to $24,386 per day, EPA Press Officer Soledad Calvino said via email.
Coliform bacteria are digestive system microbes that can be found in soil and water that don’t usually make people sick, but can be used to determine the presence of harmful germs that are harder to test for, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A high presence of total coliform can be linked to high levels of bacteria, viruses and parasites in the water.
If tests results at Lee Bar Ranch show the presence of E. coli, the owners are required to provide a gallon of water to each person every day.
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EPA orders owners of mobile home park to correct water quality violations - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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