ONTARIO, Ore. (AP) - After years of living with water that had too much arsenic and nitrates, and with the threat that they might be forced to leave, residents of the 16-family Golf Mobile City on the outskirts of Ontario now have water that regulators judge to be safe.
Environmental regulators prepared last year to shut down the park, where residents pay rent for the space to park their homes. City officials describe it as a low-income development with limited options for providing safe water and sewer systems, and with more problems ahead.
Arsenic is common in the region around Ontario, a city of more than 11,000 in easternmost Oregon on the Idaho border. It’s linked to cancer and other diseases.
Nitrates can come from fertilizers and from human and animal waste. In high doses, it can be fatal to infants, state health officials say.
The mobile home park’s septic tanks are in tough shape, city and state officials say, contaminating groundwater and allowing sewage to rise to the service. They’ll eventually have to be replaced, said Bob Baggett, natural resource specialist for the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Last year as the park owner faced a “cease and desist” order from the state over water quality, some residents said they used the water for cooking but drank bottled water. They said moving that would be a hardship since their mobile homes were too old to survive a move.
But, the Ontario Argus Observer (https://bit.ly/1Dshiw4) reports, a new owner has installed a treatment system that passed its first test.
“Samples for arsenic and nitrate were taken March 5th and sample results are below the maximum contaminant level,” said Jonathan Modie, spokesman for the Oregon Public Health Division.
That followed more than half a decade of attempts to deal with the park’s problems. City officials said the previous owner, who proposed digging a new well or hooking up to the city water supply, didn’t have enough money.
The city has opposed allowing the park to hook up to the city’s water supply unless it also joins the city.
In fairness to other mobile home parks, city officials said, the consistent policy is that water supplies would require annexation to the city, and that would include hooking up to the sewer system, building streets and sidewalks, and meeting other city standards - an expensive proposition for the small park.
The park’s current owner hasn’t applied for annexation.
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Information from: Argus Observer, https://www.argusobserver.com
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