Manager Resigns After Allegations of Bombs, Defecation Come to Light in Comp Hearings

Thursday, February 18, 2016 | 0

The manager of a rural Colorado water district who promoted an employee despite complaints that he detonated makeshift bombs and attempted to defecate on co-workers has resigned from his post, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported Wednesday.

The antics at the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association came to light in hearings on a workers' compensation claim filed by a former employee that the district had fired. A workers' compensation judge found that the water district's reason for firing claimant Bill Bailey was merely a pretext and ordered it to resume temporary total disability benefits.

Bailey was terminated after he complained about the behavior of water master Aaron English, who had been promoted to water master in 2011. Bailey and other water district employees said that English had filled milk jugs with flammable accelerant and hid them in dry brush along irrigation canals that the employees cleared with blow torches. He had also rigged bombs to explode when workers turned on the ignition switches in their trucks and attempted to defecate on workers while they worked in ditches below him.

Association General Manager Steve Fletcher resigned from his post during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, board members told the Daily Sentinel. English resigned in January, water district board member George Etchart told the newspaper.