Bare spaces, discarded decks and the debris left over from a dozen hasty departures are all that's left in about a dozen spaces at the Country Club Mobile Home Park on Airport Drive east of Carthage.

By the end of the month, most, if not all of the remaining 25 or so homes will either be abandoned or moved from the park.

For Susan and Kenneth Mather, the closure of the Country Club Mobile Home Park will mean big changes they had not planned on making.

"We moved here 23 years ago in February," Susan Mather said. "It would be more than 23 and a half years. We thought it was a nice place. We've raised two kids here and they went to Fairview school and they enjoyed it here.

"We never had any intentions of moving. We were really happy here, but the kids didn't want to be involved in it anymore so they're shutting it down."

"The kids" are the children of the late owner, Josephine Hunter, who passed away in December.
The Carthage Press could not contact any of Hunter's four children, all of who live out of state according to Kevin Hess, water pollution chief section chief for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources office in Springfield.

Hess said the mobile home park is closing because the children decided they couldn't invest the money needed to make repairs to a wastewater treatment lagoon the DNR found was illegal.
Hess said the department received an anonymous complaint in March 2008 that the lagoon did not meet state water treatment facility standards.

"It was an illegal lagoon," Hess said. "It was a two-cell lagoon that wasn't built correctly through design guides provided by the Missouri Clean Water regulations. It appeared to be possibly leaking through the bottom. It was built in a series of tailing piles. It wasn't anything we would have permitted.

"We then sent a letter to the person we thought was the owner at the time as far as giving her options to upgrade the system, hook to the city, whatever they needed to do. It was a Mrs. Josephine Hunter. Well we didn't realize it, but she had passed away. So we got a return letter from I believe a Mr. Jeff Hunter. We believe there are three or four siblings all together and we got involved with them and sent them the schedule. The schedule we sent them said they needed to hook to the city if it was available, upgrade your system to meet Missouri Clean Water law and regulations or cease the discharge.

"We got into some different phone conversations and we thought they were going to upgrade their system or hook to the city, but they have instead decided just to save their money on that end and shut the park down."

The Mathers are more fortunate than some residents, they've gathered the money to move their mobile home and they've found a place to move to, but there are still dozens of unknowns in the move. Susan Mather said all residents were given until Oct. 31 to vacate the park.

"Our trailer is a 16-by-80 and it's a 1991," Susan Mather said. "You never know when you start unhooking the water and the stud like that what's going to happen. You can't just pull a tractor-trailer in here and go; there are all kinds of preparations you have to go through. You have to pack up your dishes and things that you feel are valuable that you don't want to get broken.

"Then you've got to take your decks down because they're too big to move, then you've got to redo that when you get to the new location. You've got your deposits that you've got to pay and you don't really think about it things until this happens. We'll have to change light companies because of this. Things like your home phone, you have to pay to move, you have to pay to move cable, you have to pay to move the gas service for the cook stove and heating, so we'll have to make an extra payment to get that moved. That's what is so expensive. The move itself is only $1,700, but then you've got all these added expenses that add into this."

Resident Dorthy Martin said she had to take out a loan to move her mobile home from the spot where it has sat for the past seven years.

"The move alone will cost $1,700," Martin said. "Then I have to pay to have my air conditioning disconnected. I'll probably have to pay to get my electric disconnected because my son went out with the 203rd. If everything goes alright, I'm supposed to be pulled out on Oct. 15.

"It's been hair-pulling. My friends here have helped us, but it's been kind of scary making all these phone calls because I've never had to do anything before like this and it's just mind-blowing."

Both Martin and the Mathers said they were fortunate and there are residents of the mobile home park who don't have the money to move their homes.

Valerie Crates said she and her husband, Daniel, took over her husband's mother's mobile home in the park about a year ago.

She said they are trying to sell their home because they don't have the money to move it.

"I don't know what we're going to do if we can't sell it because we can't afford to move it," she said. "We're moving in with my mother-in-law, so we have a place to go, but we don't know what's going to happen with the home."

Hess said the DNR would work with the Hunter family to make sure the lagoons are properly closed after the park is vacated.

"They've got the ball rolling on their end and we'll work with them," Hess said. "The main thing we'll want them to do is properly close the illegal lagoon and once they get to doing that, we'll have a timeframe we'll want them to follow to make sure it's not a hazard anymore."

HELP ON THE WAY?

The Jasper County Commissioners discussed the closure of the Country Club Mobile Home Park on Thursday. Commissioners said they would contact the Economic Security Corporation to see if they could help residents who couldn't afford to move their homes.