Wilson County Residents Concerned About Brown Water

At the Retreat mobile home park, residents say they battle rust every day.

The shower in Sabrena Reason's home is brown, and the toilet is brown, too. Something in the water is destroying these fixtures.

"The water that came through had so much sediment and iron and so forth that it caused the water to smell," she says.

And stain, too. The water ruins clothes, sheets, and towels. But worse, it sometimes gives Jeff Reason and his son rashes.

"Red bumps, lot of irritation," he says. "Almost like a heat rash, but a little worse than that."

Residents suspect iron, but it is too early to say. The state says the owners of the park did not test the water for years.

Matthew Cotton, state environmental engineer, recently fined the park $800.

"They're required to provide safe drinking water to their residents, however they have to do that," Cotton says. "If they're getting complaints, they should be doing extra testing."

"Who's going to pay for my clothes, who's going to pay for the water that I buy every week, who's going to reimburse me for what I have been through?" Sabrina Reason says. "What we would like is quality drinking water."

A bacteria test done in May did come up clean, though the owners have not yet tested for iron. Owners did drop the rent on each lot by $30 per month, and time is on their side: the park should be hooked up to county water by the end of the year.