EPA orders east valley mobile home park to ensure drinking water is safe

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the Indian Village Mobile Home Park on the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians Tribe’s Reservation near Thermal to comply with federal drinking water requirements.

The EPA says the mobile home park has violated several requirements including:

• Failure to comply with various monitoring and reporting requirements for disinfection byproducts, arsenic, lead and copper, total coliform, nitrates, and disinfection residuals
• Failure to notify its customers of some of the monitoring violations
• The park also does not have a certified water operator.

The water system serves 35 residents and is privately owned.

The order requires the owner of the water system to develop a compliance plan within 45 days. Additionally, the owner is required to provide the EPA with quarterly reports to document its progress.

"It is critical that public drinking water systems have trained operators, monitor for contaminants and provide their customers with information about drinking water safety," said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator John Busterud. "EPA works directly with public drinking water systems in Indian country to ensure compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act."

EPA will continue to oversee the system’s efforts to follow Safe Drinking Water Act requirements. Failure to do so may be met with civil penalties.

The EPA confirmed that the Torres Martinez Tribe has no direct control or ownership of the water system. EPA officials are working closely with the Torres Martinez Tribe and has consulted their leadership about the violations.

For more information on EPA's drinking water program, visit https://www.epa.gov/sdwa.

This is the second privately owned mobile home park on the tribe's land to be issued some kind of order related to drinking water by the EPA.

Back on August 27, 2019, the EPA issued an emergency order at the Oasis Mobile Home Park after the arsenic levels found in the park's water system were more than nine times the maximum contaminant level.

Exposure to arsenic contaminated water is linked to numerous kinds of cancers and illnesses.

From December to February, the Coachella Valley Water District teamed up with the County to provided the 1,900 people living at Oasis with clean drinking water.

Details: ‘Contaminated Communities’: help for arsenic-tainted mobile home park water systems

Back in February, the EPA aid the water at Oasis remained out of compliance. Prior to the pandemic, the EPA stated that the earliest they expected Oasis to be in compliance was between April and June 2020.