The violations became public last week when Brookside’s more than 130 residents were forced to go without water for days due to water main breaks and other system failures.
On Jan. 5, residents were without water for hours after a water main break. And then on Saturday, Jan. 7, a pump failure resulted in residents going without water until Tuesday afternoon.
Heather Sollars, 22, who has lived at Brookside for two years, purchased gallons of water during the outage and has gallons more stored up in case the water goes out again.
“We went and bought 10 gallons of water from Walmart,” she said. “We went through them real quick and then I had to go to my grandma’s and fill them all up again.”
While water has been restored at Brookside, residents remain under a boil advisory because tests last week showed the amount of chlorine in the drinking water was more than double the maximum amount allowed by EPA.
“We can’t say the water is safe. They still have a boil advisory and there’s still some bacteria sampling to do,” EPA spokeswoman Dina Pierce said.
The issues with the Brookside wastewater treatment plant are a part of an ongoing battle between the mobile home’s owners and the EPA that date back to 2007 when it was owned by Oxford-based JGR Properties, Inc.
In 2007, a Butler County Common Pleas Court judge ruled in a consent order that JGR Properties’ wastewater treatment plants and sewer systems at Brookside and two other mobile home parks the company owned outside of Clark County violated national and state pollution laws and fined the company $75,000.
Under the consent order, JGR Properties agreed to make numerous improvements to the Brookside treatment plant by Jan. 15, 2009.
In Dec. 2009, the new owner of Brookside, GS Holdings-Brookside Ltd., was ordered to pay $10,000 for violating 12 counts of the consent order.
The Clark County Auditor’s Office still lists GS Holdings-Brookside as the owner of the mobile home park, but Rob Stoetzel of Midwest Investment and Clark County Combined Health District officials say Midwest Investment has taken over the property.
EPA officials said Brookside mobile home park owners still have not fully complied with the court order.
Pierce said officials don’t want to take the issue back to court, but noted that legal action is a possibility.
“We don’t want to have to shut them down because that’s going to affect the residents. The goal is to bring them into compliance,” Pierce said.
Mary Grooms, 73, said the water issues residents faced last week were the worst she’s seen since she moved to Brookside 30 years ago.
“We’ve been without water before, but it’s never taken this long for them to get it turned on. I waited almost five days before I called the (county) health department,” Grooms said. “I’ve been without water quite a few times. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve grown accustomed to it.”
Stoetzel, owner of Midwest Investment, said his company spent $22,000 on two new pumps last week for the water system and expects issues with the drinking water to be corrected by Sunday.
Correcting problems with the sewer system, however, will take longer.
Some of the violations include high levels chlorine, ammonia and solids, including human waste discharging to Sinking Creek, according to EPA documents.
Stoetzel said the company is trying to secure financing to install a $600,000 sewer plant to address the violations, but he said they have run into road blocks with the EPA.
“We’ve tried our hardest to stay in compliance,” Stoetzel said.
The EPA denied the company’s permit to construct the sewer plant about six months ago due to lack of information provided on the application, Pierce said.
Pierce said the company had 30 days to appeal their decision, but did not and have not responded to repeated attempts by EPA officials to get more information.
Stoetzel said Midwest Investment officials plan to pay fees to secure the license they need from the EPA to operate their public water system and the license they need from the Clark County Combined Health District to operate the mobile home park this week.
Pierce said the bill for Brookside owners is in collections and their license to operate will be restored once they pay the bill.
She said there is currently no public health risk that would prevent them from getting the license.
“If we thought there was a sign or an immediate health risk, we’re going to shut down any system because our main concern is public health,” Pierce said. “It didn’t rise to that level. But it seems to have gotten more severe since they lost their certified operator.
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