Zion trailer park to close

Printed on the front page of The Central Virginian on May 8, 2008

Dorothy Christmas had a heart attack the day after she received a letter informing her the Zion Crossroads Trailer Park, her home of 20 years, was closing.

“I don’t know where I’m going to go,” she said during an interview on Tuesday in the park, which is located in Fluvanna County. “I was stressed out from the beginning. But once I got the letter it stressed me out even more.”

Christmas and her daughter were one of 30 families informed on April 25 that they would need to find another place to live by October 31.

The 48-year-old received the letter in the mail, which was written by Barbara Wright Goshorn, a lawyer for the park’s owner S. Robert Glass.

Multiple attempts to reach Glass were unsuccessful, and his lawyer declined to comment on the matter.

“Due to new requirements mandated by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the existing Zion Crossroad Trailer Park’s waste water treatment facility must be permanently closed no later than November 1,” wrote Goshorn.

The VDEQ discovered high levels of copper and zinc in the water, which the organization determined was safe for humans but not for “aquatic life,” said Larry Simmons of the VDEQ.

To remedy the situation, Glass would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new waste treatment facility, or pinpoint and eliminate the source of the high metal levels, Simmons explained.

The source of the contaminants could be naturally occurring in the water source.

“Or it could be the result of a characteristic of the drinking water causing copper and zinc to leak out of trailer plumbing system,” he said.

Simmons said this problem has also occurred at the Fluvanna Correctional Facility.

“It could be the same water source or that the water is causing the leeching of metal,” he said.

To have a permit reissued to the park, Glass had four years to correct the problem of the high metal levels, Simmons said.

“He has known about it for quite some time, but his decision to close the park has been recent,” Simms said.

Because the park is located in Fluvanna County, Glass is unable to hook up the park to a central facility, Simmons said, because the county does not have a sewer system.

“Private residents would have a septic tank or drain field, but the trailer park is too large,” he said. “They have their own sewage treatment plant.”

Glass owns the Crescent Inn and laundromat located across the street from the trailer park, which exhibited the same high levels of copper and zinc.

The owner intends to keep those facilities functioning by hooking up to Louisa County’s waste water treatment system, Simmons indicated.

“I met with Mr. Glass and a consultant in early April and they indicated that because the trailer park was located in Fluvanna County, they thought they probably didn’t have permission to connect it,” he said.

Renting a house is not an option for Christmas, because she can’t afford it. She scrapes by each month on her disability check, which limits her choices.

Christmas also feels that residents did not receive a fair amount of time to find new housing situation considering Glass has known about the problem for four years.

“I can’t go looking for a house,” she said. “I’m still healing from a heart attack.”

Christmas maintains hope that she’ll find a solution to her housing woes.

“I keep looking to God,” she said. “He’ll give me an answer.”