Bill unpaid; fugitive-tied community taps go dry
Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008
The city of Hardy shut off water Tuesday morning to Biggers Bluff Corp., a real-estate company started by fugitive Sharp County developer Wayne Watkins and now managed by one of his associates.
The result: dry faucets in 20 homes and a business and at up to 1, 000 campsites along the Spring River.
Biggers Bluff operator Clifton Johnson, Watkins and two others are co-defendants in a lawsuit filed by the attorney general in June alleging that the four violated Arkansas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Johnson, who has been supplying Hardy water to his customers for years, stopped making regular payments to Hardy two years ago.
The water will stay off until Johnson pays the $ 16, 000 he owes the city, Hardy Mayor Nina Thornton said Tuesday.
Those who were buying water from Biggers Bluff have two options — wait until Johnson pays the bill or spend their own money to dig private wells.
The owners of Biggers Bed & Breakfast decided to spend $ 16, 000 to drill a well because water from Biggers Bluff Corp. wasn’t reliable.
“This is the third time in six years we’ve had no water,” said owner Valerie Bathrick. “So this time we’re going to dig a well and have a backup.”
David Bathrick bumped into a Hardy city councilman at the lumberyard Friday and learned that his water would be turned off.
The Bathricks quickly filled a 5, 000-gallon tank and made arrangements to have a well drilled so that their business, which includes nine rooms and a steakhouse restaurant, wouldn’t have to close.
“I hate this for all of my neighbors because none of them are going to have any water,” she said.
The timing, Valerie Bathrick said, couldn’t be worse. The inn’s views of fall foliage along the Spring River draw crowds each autumn.
City officials felt that they had to demand payment from Biggers Bluff because they don’t allow other customers to go without paying their bills, the mayor said.
“That doesn’t set well with them [paying customers ], and it don’t set well with me,” she said Tuesday. “City Council made the decision, and we took care of it this morning.”
Hardy’s annual budget is around $ 800, 000, Thornton said, with about $ 150, 000 allotted for water services. A $ 16, 000 debt is significant to the city, she said.
Johnson didn’t return calls from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thornton said Johnson told her he doesn’t have the money to pay his debt.
Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel in June named Johnson, Watkins, Watkins’ cousin Virgil Griffin and business associate Howard Baswell as defendants in his suit, alleging that they engaged in “a concerted scheme to knowingly deceive both consumer purchasers and banks.”
Watkins is wanted on a Sharp County warrant on one count of felony theft of property. His family and attorney say Watkins is living in Mexico.
Thornton said city officials have been talking to Johnson for three weeks about his unpaid water bill and warned him that the water would be turned off Tuesday morning if he didn’t pay.
“This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing,” she said. “I’m sorry they don’t have water, but they’ll have to take it up with Clifton.”
The City Council voted in open session two weeks ago to turn off the water, Thornton said. City officials made an attempt to call each resident affected, she said, even though it’s not their obligation. And they’ve run radio spots and newspaper announcements.
Thornton said she talked to the attorney general’s office, the state Health Department and the governor’s office in advance of the shutoff.
The city couldn’t take over Johnson’s lines if it wanted to, she said, because Biggers Bluff is outside the city in Sharp County. And, Thornton said, she understands that establishing clear title, given widespread land ownership questions in the area, would be impossible.
Watkins, 59, spent more than two decades developing family and camping resorts along the Spring River. He sold hundreds of parcels of land, mostly to outof-towners looking for places to retire.
Many of his customers lost their money and the land they thought they were buying when Watkins defaulted on $ 2. 6 million in loans he obtained by using the land he was selling as collateral, according to sources.
Sam Oakley, a Biggers Bluff resident since 2005, said he and his wife, both elderly and disabled, were conserving water that remained in their tank after the shutoff, but they were out of water by Wednesday morning.
The Oakleys paid Biggers Bluff $ 300 a year for water but have had water-pressure problems periodically since they bought their Oakridge Road home.
On Wednesday, the couple talked to a company about digging a well for $ 8, 000.
“I’m probably going to have to do it,” he said. “We’ve got to do something.”
Ed Barham, spokesman for the Health Department, said his agency has gotten some calls from frustrated Biggers Bluff residents, but the state won’t get involved in the dispute.
The department will inspect new wells for residents who choose to drill them, and the agency will issue a boil order if and when Hardy returns service to Biggers Bluffs’ meter until any stagnant water is flushed out, Barham said.
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