By Gail Binkly

Twenty days after an inspection found thousands of gallons of raw sewage leaking from the sewer system at Lakeside Mobile Home Park near Totten Lake, the problem had not been corrected as of Wednesday afternoon.

Neither had the raw sewage on the ground been fenced off, an action the park owner had been told to take "immediately" in a Dec. 10 letter from Greg Brand, district engineer with the Durango office of the state Water Quality Control Division.

Brand said he, Montezuma County sanitation inspector Mick Periman, park owner Richard Norton and two officials with the Montezuma Water Company visited the site Tuesday afternoon to discuss the situation, the latest in a long series of problems with the mobile-home park’s septic system.

"Mr. Norton told us he had come out to the park a couple of times to make repairs on the sewer line and to unplug it," Brand said Wednesday. "Unfortunately, his efforts did not work. What we found yesterday was the same situation we found on Dec. 2.

"The only thing that really changed was that a lot of the raw sewage now is frozen, and the creek it’s discharging into is also frozen over."

According to Brand, Norton said yesterday morning that he was ordering additional pumping equipment and he hoped to be able to pick it up in Farmington and get a crew working to correct the situation today.

A plugged sewer line is apparently causing the problem, which has resulted in raw sewage surfacing on the ground and spilling into an unnamed creek that is a tributary of McElmo Creek.

"An estimated 10,000 - 50,000 gallons of Raw Sewage came from the Lakeside MHP sewer system, surfaced out of the ground or were discharged out of the manhole near the wastewater treatment ponds, traveled across undeveloped lots, and discharged into the Ditch/Creek north of the Lakeside MHP," Brand stated in his Dec. 10 letter.

Samples taken by Brand and Periman in the road where the sewage was surfacing and at the site where it was running into the creek were found to have extremely high fecal-coliform counts, indicating untreated sewage. Fecal coliform is a type of bacteria that results from human or animal wastes.

Discharging pollutants into state waters without a permit is a violation of the Colorado Water Quality Control Act and could result in penalties of up to $10,000 per day while the discharge is continuing.

During the site visit Dec. 2, Norton checked a number of sewer manholes and decided that the sewer line had been plugged somewhere near the wastewater treatment ponds, according to Brand. The plug caused untreated sewage to back up in the pipelines, filling the manholes, then leaking from the sewer lines and erupting into a dirt road in the park.

Norton hopes to drop the new pumping equipment into the manhole and pump sewage from the manhole over the fence into the first wastewater pond, Brand explained. "He thinks this will lower the raw sewage coming out of the manhole and he will be able to start making repairs," he said.

Brand’s letter said inspectors estimated approximately 3 to 7 gallons of sewage were being discharged every minute into the creek.

Untreated sewage is a health hazard because it contains bacteria that can spread illness and can be harmful or fatal if ingested. In his letter, Brand ordered Norton to "immediately cease any and all illegal discharges of pollutants into state waters at Lakeside" and to "immediately fence all areas affected."

On Wednesday, Brand said Norton had given no reason why the fencing had not been done.

"I’ve been encouraging him to erect a fence or barricade where the raw sewage is coming out of the ground out in that undeveloped lot, to keep kids or animals out of it," Brand said. "It’s a very unhealthy situation as it exists now. We’re real concerned about the kids, since school is out."

Brand said Norton gave no reason why he hadn’t yet put up a fence.

Norton did not return phone calls from the Journal on Wednesday.

The Dec. 10 letter also required Norton to:

• Unplug and/or repair the sewer system by Dec. 14;

• Provide Brand’s office with a proposed schedule for cleanup and repairs, also by Dec. 14;

• Contain or collect by Dec. 15 the uncontrolled raw sewage on the ground, and have it properly treated and disposed of;

• By Dec. 17, decontaminate all the soils that had been contaminated;

• Provide all the routine maintenance necessary to assure that the park’s sewer system will operate properly;

• Tell Brand’s office by Dec. 22 what steps would be taken to assure that the situation would not occur again;

• Provide Brand’s office by Dec. 28 with written documentation of the cleanup and repair efforts, addressing all of the specific points cited in the letter.

So far, Brand said, Norton has met none of the requirements in the letter except for the first, which was that he cease illegal discharges of pollutants into state waters. He did that temporarily, Brand said.

"He said that he was out there on (Dec. 4), pumped out the manholes and stopped the leak coming up out of the ground," Brand said. "He’d also gotten some piece of heavy equipment to push some dirt around and dammed it so raw sewage no longer went into the creek." Norton did not, however, remove the large quantity of raw sewage on the ground, and more continued to leak from the manhole near the wastewater-treatment ponds, according to Brand’s letter.

At any rate, the temporary fix soon failed and the line became plugged again, Brand said: "Whatever he did, it didn’t work."

Untreated sewage was still going into the creek as of Wednesday, Brand reiterated, adding, "We’re still waiting for him to fence off the area. We’re kind of waiting on all the other stuff, too."

The Lakeside subdivision was platted in the early ’80s, according to the county planning office. The mobile-home park, which sits on about 10 acres of the subdivision, includes some mobile homes that are privately owned and others that are rented from Norton, who reportedly purchased the park in 1995.

Brand estimated 100 residents were living in the park and adjacent lots.

Septic problems at the park have concerned the county and state health departments since at least 1997, Brand said.

This summer, the county held a hearing on a possible cease-and-desist order for the park after repeated problems with leakage of treated sewage from the westernmost wastewater pond, and breaks in sewer and water lines.

However, no order was issued because Norton was found to have been making progress.

"Mr. Norton after a bit of persuasion did correct those problems," Brand said. "He had to stop the leakage coming from the most westerly wastewater pond and repair any potable-water lines and I believe there was sewage on the ground in one location and he had to dig a trench and fix a sewer line at that time.

"He did make the repairs, I believe in early September."