Helen LLC, which owns Chateau Estates, has agreed to permanently abandon its wastewater treatment system and have the sewage from the 225 mobile homes located at 3454 Folk Ream Road, Springfield, go to the village of North Hampton. The site also is subject to an $11,000 civil penalty for violating water pollution control regulations.

Chateau Estates previously agreed to connect to North Hampton and the village agreed to accept no more than 45,000 gallons of waste water per day. On September 27, 2006, the mobile home park began sending waste water to the village. In November 2006, however, Chateau Estates sent between 61,200 and 143,400 gallons of wastewater daily to the village.

North Hampton informed the park’s operators that additional water (rainfall, snow melt, ground water) was leaking into the system and must be kept separate from the sanitary sewage. In December 2006, instead of correcting problems in the sewer system that lead to excess flow, the owner diverted part of the wastewater away from North Hampton’s sanitary sewer system, and back to the property’s wastewater treatment plant that discharges to Donnels Creek.

Ohio EPA sent notices of violation to the facility and ordered it to discontinue operating its own facility and Chateau Estates complied. A March 19, 2009, inspection showed that Chateau Estates inserted an inflatable plug in the sanitary sewer to keep flow from Chateau Estates’ wastewater treatment plant. The inflatable plug is considered to be a temporary solution.

Chateau Estates and its owners have been ordered to permanently plug the sewer to the facility’s on-site treatment system, close the existing on-site treatment system, reduce or eliminate the excess flow from the sanitary sewer system and permanently connect to North Hampton.

Of the $11,000 penalty, $2,200 will go to Ohio EPA’s Clean Diesel School Bus Fund. Equal portions of the remaining $8,800 will be used for Ohio EPA’s Environmental Education Fund and to administer surface water programs.