LOS ANGELES, Calif. – 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 today against the operators of Oasis Mobile Home Park, located in the Eastern Coachella Valley in Southern California. 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. Today’s legal action seeks a judicial order that will require 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 Oasis Mobile Home Park is designed to house up to 1,500 people. The Park’s drinking water system uses groundwater that has naturally occurring arsenic. 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.
In August 2019, EPA issued an emergency order to Scott Lawson, the owner and operator of the Park, for providing drinking water that contained impermissibly high levels of arsenic as provided by the Safe Drinking Water Act and its implementing regulations. In September 2020, EPA issued a second emergency order for failure to comply with arsenic levels after Oasis switched to a backup well that continued to provide water with prohibitively high arsenic levels. The 2020 Order required the respondents to provide consumers with alternative drinking water, fix its treatment system, reduce arsenic levels in the drinking water distribution system, and monitor the water for contamination. After the death of Scott Lawson in May 2021, EPA issued another emergency order against the defendants named in the complaint, largely mirroring the requirements of the 2020 emergency order. In April 2023, EPA conducted sampling of the drinking water system and found arsenic still present, thereby determining that the problems with arsenic and the drinking water system remain unabated. 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.
Learn more about EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.