Eagle County mobile home park continues to struggle with water quality
Mobile Home Park Water Quality Act, approved in 2023, mandates state testing of the water in the nearly 800 mobile home parks in Colorado
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily archive
The state’s initiative to test the water in all of Colorado’s mobile home parks has revealed that at least one of Eagle County’s parks continues to struggle to provide its residents with quality water.
The Mobile Home Park Water Quality Act, approved by the state legislature in 2023, dictates that the state’s Water Quality Control Division test the water in the nearly 800 mobile home parks in the state over four years, beginning in July 2024.
“We’re working hard on this. We’re keeping up with the time frame that’s in the act, we’re getting the sampling work done, and we’re continuing to work forward on accomplishing what the act set out for us to do,” said Ron Falco, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Safe Drinking Water Program Manager.
So far, two of Eagle County’s mobile home parks have had their water tested under the act: The Eagle River Village Mobile Home Park in Edwards and the Corky West Mobile Home Park in Eagle.
While the results from Corky West Mobile Home Park are still being processed, the Eagle River Village results are available to the public.
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The state found Eagle River Village’s water to be “in compliance” with primary drinking water standards, meaning the 90 contaminants on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of enforceable limits do not exceed regulated levels. But the testing showed the park still has some challenges with secondary standards, including hard and salty water.
Hard water is assessed by measuring the amount of calcium and magnesium in the water. Water with a total hardness measuring 180 milligrams per liter is considered very hard water. When tested in March, total hardness in the water at the Eagle River Village measured 370 milligrams per liter.
The levels of total dissolved solids, which include the minerals, salts and other dissolved components in water, also measured high at Eagle River Village. The secondary maximum contaminant level for total dissolved solids is 500 mg/L. Multiple samples were collected at the mobile home park in Edwards to evaluate total dissolved solids, and all samples tested above 500 milligrams per liter, with the highest number being 820 milligrams per liter.
Both hard water and high levels of dissolved solids can make water taste salty or like mineral water, and can cause scaling on appliances and soap scum on dishes.
“The results were what we expected based on our testing and operation of the community for many decades; there were no health or safety concerns with the water as it pertains to the Colorado Primary Drinking Water Regulations,” said Marko Vukovich, president of Ascentia, the Littleton-based real estate holding company that owns the Eagle River Village Mobile Home Park.
Vukovich acknowledged the elevated levels of total hardness and dissolved solids, which he said have existed in the community’s water supply since it was originally developed.
What causes water to have high levels of contaminants?
About 84% of mobile home parks in Colorado purchase their water from a regulated public water system. In Eagle County, this might mean the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District, town of Eagle, town of Minturn or town of Basalt. Larger distribution systems are carefully monitored by the state to ensure the water their constituents use is safe.
The remaining 16% of the state’s mobile home parks have their own regulated public water systems. Until the Mobile Home Park Water Quality Act, the state did not have a consistent system for testing the water at mobile home parks.
The Eagle River Village runs its own water system and pulls its water from two wells. Residents have long raised concerns about the water quality, taste, color and impact on their wellbeing.
Water quality can be impacted by contaminants at the source or in the distribution system.
While most of the large communities in the state have high quality water that comes from reservoirs in the mountains, which starts as snowmelt, some water that is derived from groundwater wells may contain naturally high levels of minerals.
“Most small communities in the state, and most mobile home parks that aren’t buying from a large community, are using groundwater,” Falco said. “We have some groundwater in the state that is also of great quality, but in some areas of the state, natural mineral content — iron, hardness, total dissolved solids, or saltiness, manganese — naturally occur at high levels. In those situations, usually it’s that raw water and natural water quality that creates those issues and problems. Those can be challenging to address.”
Vukovich said that while Ascentia has looked into ways to reduce total hardness and dissolved solids, the company has found that the only solution is to install a reverse osmosis system. “While we have done this in other communities with success, the issue with installing an RO (reverse osmosis) system is that you have to then dispose of the waste (Brine),” he said. “Unfortunately, I do not believe Eagle River Water and Sanitation is able to take our Brine downstream, so installing an RO system is not an option today.”
How does the testing work?
The testing looks for the approximately 90 contaminants that have national primary drinking water regulations set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as those that have health advisories and secondary standards.
Primary standards identify the maximum contaminant limits that water can contain before causing health issues. These can be enforced at a national level. Secondary standards “relate to people’s experience with the water,” like taste, color and hardness, Falco said. Adherence to secondary standards is not currently required at a federal or state level.
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued health advisories for substances than can cause harm to human health and are found in drinking water, like per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, the chemicals found in certain consumer and firefighting products. These are also not enforceable.
The state has a contractor, Terracon, that collects samples of the water at every mobile home park, both at the source and at taps. All water samples are tested at certified laboratories. Upon receiving the test results, the Water Quality Control Division has five days to evaluate the data before providing it to the mobile home park owner. The park owner then has 10 days to provide notice to the park’s residents in English, Spanish and other languages.
All mobile home park water quality data is available on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment website in English and Spanish.
The water testing is designed to be paired with interviews conducted with residents of the mobile home parks to “understand resident experiences, including damage to appliances, health effects, and economic effects … abnormal (water) color, odor, or taste,” the Mobile Home Park Water Quality Act reads.
The Water Quality Control Division will soon come out with a survey for mobile home park residents that asks about everything from how their water tastes to whether they buy bottled water to how the water in their home affects their health. The survey will be available online, over the phone and in-person.
Consequences for mobile home parks with high contaminant levels
If a mobile home park’s primary contaminant levels are found to be excessive when first tested, it triggers a yearlong process during which the water is tested every quarter (four times total) to confirm the results of the first test. “You can see variations in water quality over that time,” Falco said.
If coliform levels are found to be high in a water source, the water will be retested rapidly, as the bacteria are often an indicator that other, harmful types of bacteria may be present.
If, after a year of testing, a water quality issue is found to be putting the welfare of a park’s residents at risk, the next step is remediation. Remediation includes more testing to clarify the source of the problem and determine possible solutions, followed by the creation of a remediation plan consisting of the steps the park’s owner can take to fix the problem.
There are provisions in the act if owners do not take the state’s advice to improve water quality, “but that’s not the first tool in the toolbox, and the owners that we have been working with have typically been good to work with and good at executing the things that we need to,” Falco said.
In addition to the testing, the Mobile Home Park Water Quality Act dictates that the Water Quality Control Division create an action plan by March 2026.
“One of the important components of this act is that there is a requirement for us, for the state, to develop an action plan to have a more sustained improvement to water quality in the mobile home parks across the state,” Falco said.
In the near future, the state will ask for community input on the action plan, which will likely touch on secondary standards and improving communication and education about water quality.
“We intend to participate in the stakeholder process for the development of the action plan and hope any requirements imposed upon mobile home park communities will be applicable to all public water systems in Colorado,” Vukovich said.
