An Iowa nursing home is facing a do-or-die deadline to fix sewage leaks after nearly five years of letting the issue linger.
Complaints from neighbors and inspections by local authorities have been ongoing at Riverview Manor in Pleasant Valley, IA. That action stems from sewage leaking from the facility into a nearby residential neighborhood.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources found that sewage was leaking into a nearby ditch off of U.S. 67, inciting numerous complaints from neighbors about the smell of raw sewage.
The agency became involved with the nursing home failing to adequately address the leakage, the Quad-City Times reports. State officials set a “drop-dead” deadline of Nov. 1 for compliance after previously taking less punitive actions.
“We finally said, ‘Look: We’ve been trying to get you to do something for a long time,’ ” Terry Jones, of the DNR, told the Times. “We have a tendency to try to coach into compliance. Our whole goal is to give them time to get stuff done. Most of the time, that works pretty well, but this has been ongoing.”
A series of maintenance issues have caused the nursing home’s pollution problems, according to local reports. That’s been complicated by several transfers of ownership and management switches. Riverview Manor did not immediately respond to a McKnight’s request for comment Monday.
