Tapped Out

His denials of commission charges that he violated the hookup bans are comical and complicated. He says two of the so-called developments he hooked up were not legally subdivisions and thus did not violate the bans.

Despite the fact that he contracted to provide water service to Solitude Trails, Williamson now says the main line he put in for Solitude Trails was built to transport the developer's own water.

The water mess prompted Solitude Trails developer Mark Fumusa temporarily to stop selling his lots and attempt to form his own water district so he himself can provide homeowners with water.

Fumusa refused comment, citing the pending commission decision. But in a memo to the Gila County Board of Supervisors, who must approve his water district, Fumusa said he hoped to supply water to Solitude Trails' 68 lots and then sell water back to E and R to help provide water for Pine residents.

Of course, Fumusa didn't say how long his wells would last.
"You know, the real estate people don't want all this bad advertising," says 79-year-old Ken Hollemon as he ushers a reporter into the living room of his mobile home.

Hollemon moved to Strawberry from Phoenix in 1979. The "water problem," he says, has become more and more severe. So severe that he recently installed a 220-gallon tank with a serious pump to hold emergency reserves.

Without that reserve, he and his wife would have no water for days at a time.

What bothers him almost more than the water shortage is that he never knows when his faucet will run dry. He has hope, though. The water district. Perhaps it will figure out how to tap into that deep, deep aquifer that everyone seems to be talking about.

He sits down on his favorite chair, looks out the picture window with its view of the Strawberry valley, gets to talking about how someday Phoenix will have the same problem and--his thoughts are interrupted. He squints a bit.

"Look out at that power line," he says. "There goes a dad-gummed squirrel across the power line. See, the dogs can't get him when he's way up there."

And he is reminded, once again, that even with the water problem, he's picked a place to retire that suits him just fine.