DOJ files complaint against Oasis Mobile Home Park for alleged Safe Drinking Water Act violations
The Department of Justice, on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), filed a civil complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against the operators of Oasis Mobile Home Park.
The park has been a fixture of controversy for years, most recently due to high levels of arsenic in drinking water, resulting in three emergency administrative orders issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency between 2019 and 2021, barring use of the underground reservoir there.
Arsenic is a known carcinogen, and drinking high levels over many years can increase the chance of lung, bladder, and skin cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and neurological damage.
The complaint alleges that the Administrator of the Estate of Scott Lawson and a corporation called Lopez to Lawson, Inc. failed to properly maintain and operate Oasis’ primary drinking water well, treatment and distribution systems and wastewater system, and failed to perform corrective measures to protect the health of those who consume the drinking water.
Officials with the EPA said today’s legal action seeks a judicial order requiring Oasis Mobile Home Park to address the imminent and substantial endangerment conditions related to the drinking and wastewater systems, comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act and pay a civil penalty.
“This complaint is an outcome of many years of failure by the operators of the Oasis Mobile Home Park to follow EPA’s orders and provide safe drinking water and sanitation to the families living in their park”, said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman. “We now seek action by a federal court to enforce our orders, to provide justice to the residents that have lived for so long without safe drinking water.”
The EPA issued three emergency orders at the Oasis Mobile Home Park between Aug. 2019 and May 2021.
This past April, the EPA once again found arsenic still present in the park's drinking water system. As a result, EPA issued an amended order that requires the defendants to address issues with the drinking water storage tanks.
In addition to the drinking water system compliance failures, Oasis has failed to properly operate and maintain a wastewater system that complies with the Safe Drinking Water Act and its implementing regulations. The chronic issues related to the design and operation of Oasis’s wastewater system have created an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and the environment because contaminants, such as E. Coli and other disease-causing organisms, are likely to threaten groundwater sources and enter the drinking water system.
EPA’s February 2021 and May 2022 wastewater inspections found the Park lacked a dedicated wastewater operator and a septic maintenance and pumping program for approximately 90 septic tanks located there. EPA also observed evidence of sewage overflows and wastewater line breaks. EPA visited Oasis in May 2023 and observed that the wastewater system issues remain unabated.
For more information on EPA’s drinking water standards, visit EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act webpage.
As for the park's residents, earlier this month, the Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with the state to provide water to residents.
In the last three years, over 350 people from 72 households have been relocated out of the facility, according to officials. At least 200 trailers remain occupied at the site, located on 60 acres in the 88-700 block of Avenue 70, within the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Tribe's reservation in Thermal.
The board in January signed off on a compact with the tribe to work on preventing repopulation of the park through enforcement measures, including the demolition of some unoccupied trailers.
Stay with News Channel 3 for continuing coverage.
Since November, the EPA found water containing arsenic levels above federal legal limits in at least seven mobile home parks. In May 2022, I-Team investigator Peter Daut took an in-depth look at the water issues in the east valley.
