DNR cites need to improve waste water lagoons

A Jasper County resident came to the Jasper County Commissioners seeking help for residents of a mobile home park that was shutting down.

Greg Wampler, a Jasper County contractor, said some of the elderly residents of the Country Club Mobile Home Park need help paying to move their trailers out of the park, which was shutting down because of problems with its wastewater treatment system.

An official with the Springfield office of the Department of Natural Resources, who declined to give his name to the Carthage Press, confirmed that the DNR was conferring with the Country Club Mobile Home Park just outside Carthage about problems with the park's wastewater treatment lagoons. He said the agency had given owners several options, including connecting to the city's wastewater treatment system, fixing the existing system or replacing the system.

He said a letter had been sent to the owners in July about the problem and the owners had verbally told the DNR they planned to close the park because they couldn't afford to fix the problem.

Wampler said an elderly resident had called him in to help her with a plumbing problem and told him residents had been given 60 days to move their trailers.

He said this particular resident had told him she had found a place in another trailer park to move her trailer to, but many residents of the park were elderly, on fixed income and couldn't afford the cost of moving their mobile homes.

The Carthage Press tried the phone number listed in the phone book for the Country Club Mobile Home Park, but a recording answered saying the number had been disconnected.

The commissioners said there was little they could do about the situation, but they agreed to contact the Economic Security Corporation office in Joplin to see if they could offer any assistance.

In other business, Eastern District Commissioner Jim Honey said the public auction of surplus property belonging to the Carthage School District, the city of Carthage, Jasper County and the Jasper County Emergency Dispatch Center was set for 4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the Carthage High School parking lot at Sixth and Grant street.

Presiding Commissioner John Bartosh called for a county safety committee meeting to discuss putting speed limits on County Road 100 between Fairview and Harmony roads east of Carthage.
Bartosh said a speed study had shown one driver traveling at 74 miles per hour and others traveling faster than can be safely driven on that road.

Jasper County Sheriff Archie Dunn said the legal speed limit on any county road where a speed limit is not set and posted is 60 miles per hour.