PALMER LAKE — Donald Simmons doesn’t need most cancers.
He and his spouse have been dwelling within the Elephant Rock Cellular Dwelling Park, simply outdoors downtown Monument, for the previous 13 years as a result of it’s the most affordable choice on the town.
And for the final 5 of them, their faucet water has been contaminated with elevated ranges of radium, a naturally occurring radioactive steel that may be carcinogenic.
Simmons received’t drink it, however his spouse does. And it makes him nervous.
“What’s it gonna do to our our bodies?” he requested Tuesday as he sat subsequent to his neighbor’s porch, a drill in hand. “What is that this going to do to us in the long run?”
The state is properly conscious of Elephant Rock and its tainted water. However Colorado’s prime water regulators say they’ve by no means been in a scenario like this.
Since early 2019, officers with the Colorado Division of Public Well being and Setting have cited the park proprietor, Kim Fortunate Oliver, repeatedly for refusing to adjust to state water rules and failing to tell park residents of the radium points.
The state’s lawyer common sued Oliver in August, searching for to compel the park proprietor to comply with the regulation. An El Paso County decide in February discovered him in contempt and assessed $70,000 in fines. In a letter final month, the lawyer common’s workplace advised him it deliberate to hunt a warrant for his arrest.
Oliver, although, has ignored all communications and failed to scrub up the water. In the meantime, residents say the proprietor has been absentee — failing to even accumulate hire, decide up trash or plow their streets in the course of the winter. The water system is so flawed, householders say, that it must be shut off weekly in an effort to keep away from disaster.
“This case is with out precedent,” mentioned Ron Falco, Colorado’s Secure Consuming Water program supervisor.
The park proprietor, who lives in Peyton, didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark for this story.
Regardless of aggressive state actions over 4 years, Elephant Rock residents nonetheless don’t have clear water.
“It’s a nightmare,” Simmons mentioned.
Their plight represents an excessive instance of cellular residence park neglect — a difficulty that has prompted Colorado lawmakers over the previous 5 years to run quite a few payments aimed toward boosting protections for these dwelling in America’s final bastion of unsubsidized reasonably priced housing. Democrats this session launched laws that will create a statewide water high quality testing program at cellular residence parks, following many years of resident complaints over rust-colored water and frequent outages.
The case in Palmer Lake additionally shines a light-weight on the greater than two dozen cellular residence parks throughout Colorado which have by no means registered with the state’s oversight program — leaving residents to largely fend for themselves.
Years of violations
Water points are nothing new for these dwelling in Elephant Rock.
The state in 2009 introduced an enforcement case to district court docket in opposition to Oliver’s father, additionally named Kim, for failing to observe and report contaminants within the ingesting water, together with nitrate, disinfection byproducts, lead and copper.
That case led to a consent decree, although it took three years for Oliver Sr. to finish the mandatory necessities.
Regardless of resolving these points, the park proprietor, between 2014 and 2018, “continued to sporadically violate monitoring and reporting necessities,” the state mentioned in its current grievance.
However since 2018, Elephant Rock has violated the utmost contaminant stage for mixed radium 15 instances, in line with the lawyer common’s lawsuit. In each quarter since January 2019, state water regulators have issued violation notices to Oliver.
State officers in 2021 didn’t even appear to know who really was working the park, information present. In Could of that yr, a contract operator of the park’s water system knowledgeable the state that Oliver Sr. was sick, so regulators began sending violation notices to his son. For some time, state public well being employees suspected the elder Oliver had died however the son wouldn’t reply queries or reply to the violation orders.
Finally, the state needed to affirm Oliver Sr.’s loss of life via public information, in line with the court docket submitting.
“The sample of lack of communication and lack of progress on this problem has existed earlier than the present proprietor,” Falco mentioned.
Elephant Rock’s radium ranges, in some samples, got here in at 8 picocuries per liter — a mark that’s 60% above the utmost contaminant stage of 5 picocuries per liter.
Radium is present in soil, water, crops and meals — often at low concentrations. The best potential for human publicity to radium is thru ingesting water, the place ranges are often lower than 1 picocurie per liter, in line with the Environmental Safety Company.
“Radium and radon are potent human carcinogens,” the EPA says on its web site.
Colorado’s Water High quality Management Division, in its supplies despatched to residents, says individuals who drink water containing radium above the utmost restrict over a few years “could have an elevated threat of getting most cancers.”
The division has additionally been compelled to problem two bottled water advisories since 2021 notifying Elephant Rock residents to not drink the park’s faucet water — measures the state known as an “extraordinary step.”
Within the first occasion, in August 2021, the contract operator for the park notified the division that somebody had positioned a lock on the therapy constructing, barring him for 2 weeks from working or monitoring the water disinfection therapy, in line with the state’s lawsuit.
When Oliver didn’t ship the bottled water discover to residents, as required, a state official did it themselves.
In July 2022, the division issued a second bottled water advisory after the water system misplaced strain throughout {an electrical} outage. Lack of strain, water officers say, could enable disease-causing organisms to enter the water. Oliver didn’t reply to that violation discover both, the state alleged.
Over the previous 4 years, state regulators have tried each avenue to compel Oliver to adjust to the regulation — to no avail.
They’ve known as, emailed, despatched licensed mail and employed course of servers to indicate as much as his home, information present.
The Colorado Division of Public Well being and Setting can folks $100 a day for failing to adjust to formal enforcement orders. In March 2022, state officers advised Oliver that he had been in violation for 647 days — leading to greater than $65,000 in fines. (These fines, nonetheless, have since been dropped because the case started in opposition to Oliver Sr. and can’t be transferred to new homeowners.)
An El Paso County decide in February discovered Fortunate Oliver in contempt, ordering him to pay $70,000 in penalties — an accumulation of $1,000 per day for 70 days of violations. The park proprietor by no means confirmed as much as the contempt listening to.
It’s now been greater than 1,000 days because the Olivers have been ordered to scrub up his park’s water — and 5 years because the radium ranges first exceeded state thresholds.
Final month, the Colorado Legal professional Normal’s Workplace, in a letter to Oliver, mentioned the division deliberate to hunt a bench warrant for his arrest by the top of March except he contacted the state to “take acceptable steps to adjust to the order.”
“If granted, the court docket could have you ever arrested and held in jail till you adjust to its orders,” Rebecca Fischer, an assistant lawyer common, wrote within the March 10 letter.
Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesperson for the lawyer common’s workplace, mentioned the state has not but sought the warrant, “however is dedicated to pursuing acceptable sanctions.”
This case has despatched state water regulators into “new territory,” Falco mentioned.
His division solely goes to court docket a few times a yr, at most, to compel water operators to comply with the regulation, he mentioned. Usually that’s sufficient to make sure compliance. However searching for a bench warrant? That’s past the place his workplace has gone.
There are at present 35 water methods within the state above the authorized restrict for radionuclides — together with radium — however all of them are them are on the trail to compliance, in line with state water officers.
Apart from Elephant Rock.
“We don’t have expertise with as extended a interval of lack of communication, lack of progress and lack of coordination with us to deal with this problem as we do on this case,” Falco mentioned.
“It’s actually unhappy”
Elephant Rock residents say issues began to go downhill after the elder Oliver died.
The son is rarely round and doesn’t reply when known as or texted, inhabitants say.
“No person can get him,” mentioned Stewart Currier, a resident who says he brokered a handshake take care of the youthful Oliver to handle the park. “He’s very elusive.”
The owner stopped paying for trash companies, main the waste firm to take away the dumpsters from the park. Now residents need to take their refuse to the dump themselves.
No person plows the snow in the course of the winter, a process that falls underneath the park proprietor’s obligations. In consequence, Simmons and different cellular residence homeowners with vans attempt to pack down the powder as a lot as they’ll so folks with smaller automobiles can drive out and in of the park.
Denise Jones and her husband, Geoffrey, mentioned they didn’t even know they’d radium within the water till the state despatched them a letter.
“It’s not an enormous deal,” she mentioned. “I’m too outdated to care.”
Currier, 61, mentioned he nonetheless drinks the water from the faucet, radium and all.
“I’m a miner,” he mentioned from his porch. “I do know what radiation does and what it seems like.”
Paul Grant, the park water system’s contract operator, who maintains the system and submits samples to state regulators, claimed the radium ranges are again in compliance after they switched wells just lately. These outcomes, he mentioned, have been reported to the state.
“The water has all the time been clear to drink,” he mentioned.
The state has seen radium ranges in Elephant Rock for the ultimate quarter of 2022 and the primary quarter of 2023 under the utmost contaminant ranges.
However a “couple quarters of decrease outcomes don’t equal a full return to compliance,” Falco mentioned.
“What they should do is talk with us, cooperate with us and comply with phrases from the enforcement order,” he mentioned. “Quick-term return to barely decrease values throughout a time of yr after they’re not utilizing as a lot water as in the course of the summer season — that’s not what we’re in search of.”
The plan is to improve the water to a reverse osmosis system by Christmas 2024, Currier mentioned, although it’s unclear who would pay for it.
The park is by itself properly and consistently runs into points. Currier mentioned he’s compelled to close off the water each week for a pair hours in an effort to avert catastrophe. This results in fixed resident gripes.
“You attempt to wash the dishes as quick as you’ll be able to trigger you don’t know when the water will exit,” mentioned Kevin Suarez, one other resident.
On prime of the years-long water violations, Elephant Rock is one in every of 28 parks throughout Colorado that by no means registered with the state’s Cellular Dwelling Oversight Program, as is required by regulation, division information present.
“Fortunate (Oliver) hasn’t accomplished (expletive),” Currier mentioned when advised that the park is unregistered.
The state has assessed a $3,000 delinquent registration penalty and recorded a lien for that quantity in opposition to the park, mentioned Christina Postolowski, the oversight program’s supervisor. Unpaid penalties may be despatched to collections.
As of Oct. 1, underneath a invoice signed by Gov. Jared Polis final yr, landlords who don’t register with the oversight program, or have unpaid penalties, are ineligible to lift hire.
Oliver hasn’t even collected lot hire since taking on in 2021, a number of residents mentioned, resulting in confusion over whether or not the owner may ask for again funds sooner or later.
Denise Jones, 63, remembers residents shoving envelopes with hire right into a field arrange within the park. However then somebody broke into the field, taking the money and leaving different checks and cash orders mendacity on the highway.
“It’s loopy,” she mentioned.
The Cellular Dwelling Oversight Program has obtained two complaints — one particular person, one group — from Elephant Rock residents in opposition to Oliver, Postolowski mentioned. Each are nonetheless underneath investigation.
Simmons, for his half, worries what is going to occur to folks if the park will get foreclosed on or is redeveloped.
“If we lose it,” he mentioned, “some folks will likely be homeless.”
It’s arduous for the longtime resident to see the park crumble. They dwell in a gorgeous space, with the Rocky Mountain foothills simply seen throughout Route 105.
However a number of trailers are vacant. One was consumed by a fireplace. Others are falling aside.
On Tuesday afternoon, Simmons — clad in blue-jean overalls and a white shirt — was serving to a neighbor repair their wood porch, dreaming of going again to his native Missouri.
“It’s unhappy,” he mentioned. “It’s actually unhappy.”
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