WATER

you have to drive two hours to work and you come home and have to go to a laundromat because you can’t wash your clothes at your residence, there’s a real cumulative impact of living under those conditions.” e Aspen-to-Parachute region has 55 parks, which combined have about 3,000 homes and 15,000 to 20,000 residents. Mobile home parks are some of the last neighborhoods of nonsubsidized a ordable housing left in the state and provide crucial worker housing, especially in rural and resort areas.

Residents have complained about the water quality in some parks for years, but agencies have lacked the regulatory authority to enforce improvements. Recently, residents in parks near Durango and in Summit County have lacked running water for weeks at a time.

Voces Unidas de las Montanas, a Latino-led advocacy nonpro t that is based in Colorado’s central mountains and works in the Roaring Fork Valley, is one of the organizations leading Clean Water for All Colorado, a committee that helped to craft the legislation.

“Many of us who grew up in mobile home parks, myself included, have always known and normalized buying bottled water from the store, and it’s because we don’t trust our water,” said Alex Sanchez, president and CEO of Voces Unidas. “Many residents have been complaining and calling for action for decades, and no one has answered their call.”

Sanchez said the bill is his organization’s No. 1 legislative priority this session.

Rocky Mountain Home Association and Colorado Manufactured Housing Coalition oppose the bill. Tawny Peyton, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Home Association, said the mobile home park industry has been bombarded with sweeping law changes in recent years, causing confusion and additional operation and legal costs. Laws enacted in 2019, 2020 and 2022 granted extra protections to mobile home park residents.

“ e Rocky Mountain Home Association is concerned with the entire bill,” Peyton said in an email. “Why is the mobile home park industry being singly targeted with this legislation? Industry was not made aware that mobile home park water quality was such an issue that a 23-page bill was warranted.”

Bill proponents acknowledge that the issue may take years to get resolved and that new regulations would be just the rst step toward gathering data and assessing the problem.

“ is is just a rst stab at trying to resolve this issue,” Soto said. “ is is establishing a framework to start testing and get all the information and documenting all the water sources for mobile home parks to determine what is the problem.” todoifyoubelieveachildisatrisk.

House Bill 1257 is scheduled for a hearing by the Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee on Wednesday.

Aspen Journalism is a nonpro t newsroom reporting on water, environment and social justice.

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