Published: March 19, 2009 11:12 pm      

County plans trailer park clean-up

Jamestown — For less than the price of an attorney, the Boone County Health Department hopes to clean up the Haffner Mobile Home Park east of Jamestown.

Construction debris and piles of trash litter six of the park’s 52 lots, BCHD Environmental Division Director Sharon Adams said at the Boone County Solid Waste Management District’s meeting Thursday. Haffner is on County Road 400 West, south of CR 750 S.

Adams said the department will ask for a grant to place Dumpsters at the trailer court, making clean-up easier and affordable — for residents and officials.

Concern for children playing on and around the trash piles prompted the recent complaints, she said.

“You can’t hire an attorney to do an enforcement case ... for what it costs us for a Dumpster,” BCSWMD Director David Lamm said. “You avoid the court, you avoid the litigation, you avoid the hard feelings.”

Dumpsters were used for a clean-up drive at the trailer park five years ago, Lamm said.

Adams said “it wasn’t particularly cost-effective” for health department inspectors to visit the site. The agency will take legal action if necessary.

Unlike most mobile home parks, where a general manager handles maintenance and trash removal, Haffner’s trailers and lots are individually owned, said Adams.

Some residents can’t afford to clean up their lots. Others won’t.

“It’s a split community,” said Greg Inham, a BCHD environmental specialist.

Some owners have lived there for years; others are younger people who moved to Haffner “because it’s more affordable,” he said.

Building material surrounds one home that the owner abandoned three or four years ago, after an illegal and unsuccessful remodeling effort, Inham said.

One trailer, Adams said, “was put together, essentially, with duct tape.”