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A new state program to test the safety of drinking water at mobile home parks in Colorado kicked off this summer, but it could be awhile until communities see major fixes.
The testing program is part of the Mobile Home Park Water Quality Act that was passed by the legislature in 2023 and went into effect this year.
The law gives the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) authority to test the water at all of Colorado’s roughly 750 parks and, if needed, force owners to solve any issues.
As of Oct. 15, CDPHE had already tested the water quality at about 70 communities and was on track to meet its four-year completion goal.
“We are required to test 25% of mobile home parks every year, which means we need to get 190 parks tested by June 30, 2025,” said Stephanie Hosie, who is the mobile home park unit manager for the state’s Water Quality Control Division.
Working toward an enforcement process
Of the mobile home parks tested so far, about 12 were found to have water quality issues such as by-products from disinfectant chlorine, bacterial contamination and heavy metals. Among the first group tested was Apple Tree Park in New Castle, where residents raising concerns about their tap water drawn from nearby wells helped spur the legislation. The results showed elevated levels of heavy metals.
“We only have test results back for 10% of parks throughout the state, so we can't really say if this is representative of, you know, the state in general,” Hosie said.
Although it's too early to know the full scope of water quality issues at mobile home parks across Colorado, Hosie expects that problems are more likely to be found in communities such as Apple Tree that have their own water system.
“So far, we have information that more than 80% of parks throughout the state actually receive their water from a larger utility or from a larger public water system,” she said. “So, we would expect a lot of parks in the state are receiving a good quality of water at their parks.”
When an issue is identified, the state has funding available to help parks take the next steps depending on what kind of contaminant or problem is found.
“And then if we are needing to use an enforcement process and penalties, we will,” Hosie said.
But most of the water quality issues at these parks won’t be fixed right away because the state’s enforcement and penalty process is still being set up and the program requires more follow-up testing that, in some cases, could last up to a year.
“For example, with total coliform bacteria, we would like to see follow-up samples quite quickly,” Hosie said. “But for something like disinfection by-products, we would like to see data over the course of an entire year so we can see what they look like at different times of the year.”
Although no major fixes have happened yet, most parks have been complying with the state testing program.
“They've been going and doing the additional testing and working with us,” Hosie said. “We've been really impressed with park owners, managers and staff showing they're committed to water quality and ensuring people have safe water.”
Apple Tree residents continue to face daily water challenges
At Apple Tree Park, where residents have been complaining for years about the strange odor, taste and discoloration of the water coming out of their taps, the first round of test results in February showed that the water meets federal Environmental Protection Agency standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act, but it has higher-than-normal levels of heavy metals such as iron and manganese in its groundwater wells.
Silvia Barragán, who moved to the park in 2015, is frustrated by the slow response from park owners and the state.
“It makes me feel horrible because I see the issue. I live with this issue everyday,” she said. “I have to get my water from the store in Glenwood.”
The state has been working with Utah-based company Investment Property Group (IPG), which bought Apple Tree Park from the local Talbott family in 2020, to come up with short-term fixes such as flushing the water system more frequently and putting in a filling station where residents can pay 35 cents per gallon of filtered water. Asked for an interview, an IPG staff member at Apple Tree Park said the company does not participate in media interviews.
For her part, Barragán doesn’t trust the filling station because the filtered water is still coming from the same underground wells as her tap water, and she said the increased flushing recently caused her boiler to break.
“I flushed my boiler because they’ve been telling us to, and then I had to call a plumber to come fix it,” she said. “My plumber came from Gypsum, and he charges $150 an hour, so it's like $300 to come and just fix that issue.”
In addition to her boiler problem, the water continues to stain Barragán’s clothes and laundry as well as ruin her appliances and her bathtub.
“The bathtub is so bad and I really need to replace it, but there's no point if they don’t fix the water,” she said. “My job is stressful where I would like to come home and take a hot bath, and I'm not able to do this.”
The state has identified some long-term engineering solutions such as installing a new filtration system, or even connecting Apple Tree Park to the municipal water supply, but park residents will probably have to live with the current water until the state’s enforcement process is set up and the required follow-up testing is completed before next summer.
In the meantime, Barragán, who loves her home and wants to continue living at Apple Tree Park, has been looking at houses for sale in other neighborhoods because she is tired of waiting for clean water.
“It has been happening since I lived here,” she said. “So, it’s just bad. It makes me feel disappointed.”
This story was produced through a social justice reporting collaboration between Aspen Journalism and Aspen Public Radio.
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