Tainted Water Flowing into Oklahoma River

An Oklahoma City mobile home park has released tainted water into the Oklahoma River.

Friday, June 19th 2009, 7:27 pm

By: News 9


By Rusty Surette, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- An Oklahoma City mobile home park has released tainted water into the Oklahoma River.

The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality said the water draining from the Lakeview Terrace Mobile Home Park's sewer lagoon does not meet the state's water quality standards. The waste water drains directly into the nearby Oklahoma River.

"We were told a year ago that the waste water from our lagoon isn't clean enough," said the park's maintenance man Buster Walling.

Engineers said the lagoon should naturally filter the waste water until it's clean enough to go into the river, but that has not happened. They said the lagoon is poorly designed, old and could pose a significant risk to the public.

"It could overflow, the banks could break and all of sudden all the water may discharge. It may have a high B.O.D and the fish may die," said Kris Agrawal with GETCO Engineering.

A spokesperson for Keith Group Properties, a Las Vegas-based company, said the company purchased the park nearly two years ago and was told at the time the sewer lagoon was in compliance with state standards, but testing by the DEQ proved that wasn't the case.

The owners don't have the land or space to build additional collection cells to help filter the water, so they asked the city for help.

"What we need is for the city of Oklahoma City to come in and build us a sewer line that will connect to the mobile home park. If that happens we can eliminate this and all future problems in this area," Agrawal said. "If the public would support the project then the public funding can be provided."

The amount of waste that's in the water isn't enough to create a public health hazard at this time, but levels are higher than what state law allows, according to an engineer that's assisting with the problem.

Engineers said the waste from the park had nothing to do with the triathletes who got sick during the triathlon in Oklahoma City in May.

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