Lakeside owners miss deadline given by county

Lakeside owners miss deadline given by county

Oct. 12, 2000

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer

After months of broken promises to fix leaking sewage lagoons, the owners of Lakeside Mobile Home Park and Estates have once again failed to meet a deadline to comply with state and county regulations.

County and state health officials said that Drew Cleland, the current owner of Lakeside, failed to meet an Oct. 7 deadline to submit an application for a state sewage-disposal permit.

An Aug. 8 Montezuma County cease-and-desist order warned that if Cleland or the Homeowners Association failed to act, they must stop "discharging and allowing other persons to discharge sewage at, to, on and from" Lakeside Mobile Home Park and Lakeside Estates, located east of Cortez.

Mick Periman, Montezuma County sanitation inspector, said Tuesday his next step is to verify whether Cleland is operating the sewer system, and if so, present the violation to District Attorney Mike Green for criminal prosecution.

"We haven’t had a case go this far, ever," said Periman.

Green said that, under state law, criminal penalties could be imposed, but no action has been taken yet.

The former owner, Richard Norton, transferred ownership to his business partner, Cleland, in February just a few days after Norton was issued a notice of violation and a cease-and-desist order from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for violating the Colorado Water Control Act.

Norton didn’t comply with the health department’s clean-up request in December 1999, after health inspectors found two unlined, unpermitted sewage lagoons and high levels of fecal-coliform bacteria draining into a tributary of McElmo Creek.

The state had to drop its cease-and-desist order after the property changed hands. Greg Brand, the district engineer for the Colorado Water Quality Division, said that at this time the state was supporting the county’s efforts but had not decided on whether to reissue a new cease-and-desist order.

In July, Cleland promised the Montezuma County commissioners that construction of a new sewage system would begin this fall. So far, an engineer’s report for reconstructing the system has yet to be submitted to the county.

Periman said the health of mobile-home residents is not in jeopardy yet. "At this point it doesn’t appear to be a health hazard," said Periman, but he said that a wet winter could cause the sewage lagoons to overflow again.

The original owner of the property, Ronald Worrell, installed the sewage system in the early ’80s. Worrell recently won a lawsuit against Norton for failing to pay $312,000 for the property.

Worrell was set to foreclose on the property on Sept. 20, but Kelly McCabe, Worrell’s attorney, said that Cleland issued a promissory note to Worrell instead, and kept the property in his name.

Currently, the property is listed for sale with Century 21 for $1.2 million.