The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today a final settlement concerning alleged violations related to wastewater treatment plants with Manufactured Home Community (MHC) management company Horizon Land Management, LLC (Horizon), and four of the MHCs it manages located in Lothian and Harwood, Maryland. Horizon oversees over 170 MHCs nationwide.
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 for alleged Clean Water Act violations associated with discharges from their wastewater treatment plants into local waterways. These discharges included 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 that flow to the Chesapeake Bay.
The four MHCs are located in potential Environmental Justice Areas of Concern and experience other environmental stressors from 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 maintenance of each wastewater treatment plant to bring them back into compliance with their permits.
EPA Region 3 worked in conjunction with the Maryland Department of the Environment to address these cases.
This settlement also furthers EPA’s obligation to reduce significant noncompliance and improve surface water quality by addressing unauthorized discharges and other violations that may impact public health and the environment.
For more information about the Clean Water Act permit program, visit www.epa.gov/npdes.
