Lakeside plans to hook up to city sewer line

Lakeside plans to hook up to city sewer line

October 9, 2001

By Janelle Holden
journal staff writer

The residents of a county mobile-home park could be sending their waste to the Cortez Sanitation District in a few years.

Plans to finally repair the ailing wastewater-treatment system at Lakeside Mobile Home Park were presented to the Montezuma County commissioners on Monday.

Two engineers from Rick Johnson Engineering of Bayfield told the commissioners the plan they’ve prepared would fix the wastewater-treatment system for the 66 homes at the park for an interim period, while the park’s owners raise the funds to consolidate the park’s wastewater into the Cortez Sanitation District.

The current wastewater system has been plagued by numerous problems since 1997. The ongoing breakdowns have left standing ponds of waste within the rural neighborhood east of Cortez and bacteria-laden discharge illegally flowing into a tributary of McElmo Creek.

A cease-and-desist order was issued by state health department inspector Greg Brand to park owner Tom Norton in February 2000. The order was issued for alleged violations of state health standards, and for failure to comply with clean-up requests. But the order was dropped after the park switched hands. The park is now owned by DLMT, LLC.

After the state dropped its cease-and-desist order, Montezuma County issued one in August 2000. It required an engineering plan that would bring the system into compliance with state and county health standards.

Now that the engineering plan has been completed, the matter will be heard by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s commission, which will either grant or deny the park a state wastewater-discharge permit.

The commissioners have 60 days to comment on the plan, which would require nearly $1 million to complete.

Interim improvements to the system will cost an estimated $50,000, and consolidation with the sanitation district will cost an estimated $889,000.

Drew Cleland, the manager of DLMT, said that the investment group needed to sell off lots to the east of the park to be able to fund consolidation.

Cleland said it was a "chicken-and-egg problem," since the county will not allow lots to be sold unless sufficient sanitation is available for further development.

"We have an approved subdivision with no adequate sewer yet," said Cleland.

Currently there are 66 home sites on the property, but DLMT plans to develop another 173 homes on as-of-yet unplatted property to the east of the mobile-home park.

The engineering plan calls for building onto the system in three phases, to handle wastewater presently there, and wastewater from further development — discharging up to 33,000 gallons a day into the McElmo tributary.

"I think the position that we’re in now is that there’ll be no more lots sold until this is fixed," said County Administrator Tom Weaver.

Cleland said that as the lots are sold, he would like to put the money into a secure fund so that if development plans fall through, consolidation with the sanitation district would still be funded.

"If we fail and we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, the funds are here, and we’re not putting the people at risk, and we’re not putting the county at risk," said Cleland.

"We want out of the sewer business," he explained.

"And we don’t want to be in the sewer business," replied Weaver.

In the interim, the engineering plan calls for upgrading existing facilities, improving aeration of waste, and installing a chlorinated disinfecting treatment system before the water is pumped into a tributary of McElmo Creek.

The state’s district engineer told the commission that raw sewage is no longer flowing out of the system.

"I actually think the conditions out there are greatly improved," said Brand, the district engineer from Durango. "I think we’ve actually come a long ways from where we were months ago."

"It’s not the best collection system, but it does operate fairly well — as best as can be expected for kind of a run-down trailer park," said DLMT’s engineer Rick Johnson.

The commissioners planned to study the engineering proposal before submitting comments, but expressed some initial hesitancy.

"The interim plan is based on the assumption that everything is going to work out with the Cortez Sanitation District. That’s taking a real optimistic outlook," worried Commis-sioner Gene Story.

But the engineering plans were better than nothing, he said. "I think we’re all encouraged by the fact there is something positive occurring."