Owner Magar E. Magar ordered to pay $282,000 to former and current residents, but Syringa's closure has stripped many of their homes and livelihoods

Staff report
A tattered flag and a spray-painted message are seen outside Cindra Stark’s mobile home on Monday at Syringa Mobile Home Park east of Moscow.
A tattered flag and a spray-painted message are seen outside Cindra Stark’s mobile home on Monday at Syringa Mobile Home Park east of Moscow.Geoff Crimmins/Daily News

The Syringa Mobile Home Park - located on Robinson Park Road about 3 miles east of Moscow - has been plagued for years with failing water and sewer systems.

Residents have faced countless sewage backups, unaddressed puddles of raw sewage throughout the park, water contaminated with fecal coliform bacteria and lead, and, at times, had no potable water.

With the help of University of Idaho law professors, a class-action suit was filed in 2014 against the park's owner, Magar E. Magar, after residents reported damages and went without drinkable water for 93 days from December 2013 to March 2014.

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In December, Magar agreed to pay $282,000 to current and former residents who were left without water at that time.

Given the expense of repairing the park's sewage lagoons and updating the water infrastructure, however, it was decided continuing Syringa as a mobile home park was not economically feasible, according to a report filed by Magar last year in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Western District of Washington at Tacoma.

So, after decades of growing a community, the park will close June 5.

The closure, while economically beneficial for Magar, has stripped residents of their homes and livelihoods.

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