Trailer Park Seeks Town Help In Connecting To Sewer System

By Andrew Gorosko

The owners of a local trailer park are seeking town financial help to have sanitary sewers extended to their 60-unit complex on Sugar Street, which has serious chronic septic system problems.

Attorney Robert Hall, representing the owners of Meadowbrook Terrace Mobile Home Park at 55 Sugar Street, has asked the Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) to cover the costs for extending a sewer line to the facility and installing sewage pumping equipment for it. Construction costs are estimated at $300,000.

The owners initially had requested a federal grant for the sewer extension project, but because an insufficient percentage of Meadowbrook residents responded to an income survey which is required for such grant funding, the trailer park became ineligible for a grant.

In a December 1 letter to the WPCA, Mr Hall explains that he has asked local banks to finance the project, but they are unwilling to do so because the trailer park owners do not qualify to borrow the amount of money needed for the construction work. Also, efforts to sell the trailer park have been unsuccessful, Mr Hall writes.

“If the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] takes the position that the existing permit to discharge [septic waste] should not be renewed, 60 moderate-to low-income homes sites would be wiped out,” he adds.

Mr Hall suggests that the town construct a sewer line extending to the trailer park and then place a lien on the trailer park for the full cost of the construction work. Mr Hall asks that the WPCA consider his proposal at a future WPCA meeting.

At a recent WPCA meeting, Mr Hall told WPCA members the malfunctioning septic system for the trailer park must be pumped several times weekly to handle overflow conditions. Such sewage pumping is done to avoid public health hazards posed by the presence of exposed sewage.

Public Works Director Fred Hurley said Tuesday he expects that the trailer park will eventually be linked to the town sewer system, but it remains unclear how the construction costs will be covered. Perhaps a firm would buy the trailer park and assume the construction costs to extend sewers to it, he said.

The WPCA is reviewing Mr Hall’s town financing proposal and is seeking additional information, Mr Hurley said.

In 1999, the trailer park’s owners hired Fuss and O’Neill, Inc., the town’s consulting engineer, to design a sewer line to connect the trailer park to the sewer system. The trailer park is more than 2,000 feet west of the sewer system. A low-pressure sewer would be extended from the intersection of Sugar Street and West Street to the trailer park. Grinder pumps, providing a waste disposal system which functions as if it had a miniature sewage pumping station, would power the sewer line.

Properties lying alongside that sewer line between the trailer park and the existing sewer system would not be allowed to connect to the sewer system.

The DEP has been working with the town in seeking to solve the trailer park’s sewage disposal problems, Mr Hurley said.

Mr Hurley suggested that the owners of the trailer park pursue a waste disposal solution more vigorously than they have in the past. The trailer park’s owners are Penelope Barrett and William Henckel.

The DEP has maintained that the long-term solution for Meadowbrook’s septic system woes is connecting its trailers to the municipal sewer system.

Mr Hall has said, “If there’s any property in town that needs a sewer hookup more than the Meadowbrook Terrace Mobile Home Park, I don’t know what it is.”