By Susan Redden

sredden@joplinglobe.com

CARTHAGE, Mo. — People who live in about 25 mobile homes are looking for new places to locate because a rural Carthage mobile-home park is to close because of sewer problems.

Occupants of the Country Club Mobile Home Park on Airport Drive, just east of Carthage, have been given until Oct. 31 to relocate, according to Kenneth Mather, a resident who has lived there for more than 23 years.

The decision to close the park was made by the owners after the wastewater system was cited by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said Kevin Hess, water-pollution section chief with the agency’s southwest regional office.

He said the department received a complaint in March about the sewage lagoon serving the park. After an inspection, officials found that it did not meet state requirements, he said.

The DNR sent the park’s owner a letter of warning, Hess said, saying discharges to the lagoon must end and the lagoon must be closed. The state said steps to address the issue could include connecting to the Carthage city sewer system, building a new on-site system that the DNR would permit, or ending discharges to the lagoon by closing the park.

Hess said the letter was sent to Josephine Hunter as park owner, and that the DNR was contacted in late July by relatives, who said Hunter had died.

“We learned she had passed away, and her heirs told us they lived out of state and weren’t interested in owning the park,” he said.

Once the park is emptied, the owners will be given a deadline for properly closing the lagoon, Hess said.

Mather said he and other residents were notified in July that they would have to be out of the park by the end of October. He said he has located another mobile-home park and is making plans to move.

He said the move is an unexpected expense, adding, “We’ll be OK as long as the trailer holds together.”

He said the move will be a financial hardship on some residents of the park. Some have negotiated paying the cost out in monthly installments, he said, and some are having to borrow the money.

Greg Wampler, a plumber who recently worked in the park, attended Thursday’s meeting of the Jasper County Commission and expressed concern about the financial impact the closing would have on some residents.

The commissioners agreed to contact the Economic Security Corporation of Southwest Missouri, the area community-action agency, to see whether financial help might be available for the residents who cannot afford the cost.