Arsenic levels add to mobile home park problems

“Make it quick,” said Mike Warner, Rancho de Sonoma Residents’ Association president, when asked about a report that the park’s well water failed environmental standards. “My doctor said I’ve only got three minutes left before the arsenic kicks in.”
He was joking about the three minutes, but not about the arsenic. On June 19, the California Department of Public Health issued a notice of violation to Rancho de Sonoma of the Federal Arsenic Rule, stating that the water system No. 4900845 had violated the arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 0.010 milligrams per liter (mg/L) during the first quarter of 2008. Sonoma City Manager Linda Kelly said the city had received EPA notices in late July and early September for Rancho de Sonoma and for two other Sonoma properties, both on Eighth Street East.
Park owner Preston Cook said the water problem was not new – but the higher federal standard is. “The water has not changed in the level of arsenic in the last 30 years. The EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] said a lot of wells have the same thing.” He said the remedy could result in higher rents to the park residents unless he can pay for the improvements as part of his proposed condo conversion.  “There’s ways to resolve it through another filtering system. [But] filtration is a capital improvement and tenants are going to have to pay for that – unless I do the conversion.”
Earl Ahern, president of the newly formed Rancho de Sonoma Homeowners’ Association – which, unlike Warner’s group, approves Cook’s proposed condo conversion – said the owner is taking some remedial steps but that the whole water system needs refurbishing. “The other problem is if he drills another well around here, he’s probably going to come up with the same contamination.”
Hooking up to city water would be another option, Ahern said, but that would cost $469,000 for a permit for the 100 units. “No plumbing, no nothing. The whole package would be about  $2.5 million.” Either way, he said, the problem will be fixed within the EPA’s timeline for compliance. Meanwhile, despite quoting some sources citing arsenic as a factor in Alzheimer’s disease, he buys bottled water for his dog but drinks from the tap himself.
According to the EPA, arsenic is odorless and tasteless and enters the drinking water from natural deposits in the earth or from agricultural or industrial runoff. Long-term, chronic exposure may be associated with a number of health conditions, including various cancers. “The Big A causes the Big C,” Warner said. “This is part of the ongoing symphony opera here with our situation with the park owner.”
Preston Cook said he was within the time frame for compliance. A copy of a letter from Weeks Drilling and Pump Co. of Sebastopol, to the district engineer, Drinking Water Field Operations Branch, State Department of Health Services, shows the mobile home park as being on schedule for compliance with the provisions of the arsenic rule. According to the schedule, a plan will be submitted by Aug. 3, 2009 and within 90 days of approval will “construct and place into operation a permanent arsenic-reduction water-treatment system.”
Everett Pringle, federal enforcement coordinator for the EPA, said, “We’re giving most of the systems until around the first or second quarter of 2010. They have to come up with a plan. Then they implement the plan and the EPA follows through. We are working with the California Department of Public Health with the plan and the system. Of the three wells cited in Sonoma, none present a problem so far,” he said. “All of the systems have been cooperating with the EPA and at this point we do not see any problems with the systems coming into compliance.”
Warner said, “This is not a pass-through. One of the things we have that’s included in our rent is water. The park is required to supply it.” Warner and his group have consulted “a major law firm” and if they get enough of their members on board, he said, they plan to sue park owner Preston Cook for not informing the residents in a timely fashion about the park’s well water having failed EPA standards. Warner said Cook, who purchased the park in the fall of 2005, never told the residents of the problem until April of this year.