U.S. EPA settles wastewater treatment cases in Maryland with $1.1 million in penalties

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 29, 2024, a final settlement over alleged violations related to wastewater treatment plants with Manufactured Home Community (MHC) management company Horizon Land Management, LLC, and four of the MHCs it manages located in Lothian and Hardwood, Maryland.

Through four administrative consent agreements with the EPA, Horizon and the four MHCs; Boone’s Estates MHC, LLC, Lyons Creek MHC, LLC, Maryland Manor MHC, LLC and Patuxent MHC, LLC will pay a combined total of $1,136,162 in penalties.

The penalties are for Clean Water Act violations associated with discharges from their wastewater treatment plants into local waterways, including suspended solids, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen and E. coli.

From January 2019 to October 2023, Boone’s had 194 exceedances of permit limits, Lyons Creek had 50 exceedances, Maryland Manor had 33 exceedances, and Patuxent had 38 exceedances.

These exceedances introduced illegal pollutants into the Patuxent River and its Tributaries, negatively impacting water quality in those water bodies, which flow to the Chesapeake Bay.

The four MHCs are located in potential Environmental Justice Areas of Concern, and experience other environmental stressors from other industrial activity.

Maintenance of the wastewater treatment plants in each community was neglected for years.

In December 2023, EPA Region 3 entered into four Administrative Orders on Consent for Horizon and the MHCs to repair and improve the maintenance of each wastewater treatment plant to bring the plants back into compliance.