Griffin: ‘[E]xcavators are required to call the One Call Center, commonly known as 811, before they excavate’

LITTLE ROCK – After filing a lawsuit today against Ground Zero Construction Inc. – an excavation company based in Northwest Arkansas – and its owner, Rod Garman, Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement:

“Ground Zero Construction Inc. has repeatedly damaged natural gas lines because it refuses to comply with the Arkansas Underground Facilities Damage Prevention Act, which requires excavators to call the One Call Center, commonly known as 811, before they excavate. The law also prohibits using mechanized equipment without express approval near underground facilities and is intended to limit damage to natural gas lines and other underground facilities and protect the public from harm.

“By refusing to comply with 811 requirements before excavating, Ground Zero has repeatedly put the public at danger. Its failure to abide by the law is an unconscionable business practice pursuant to the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. All businesses should dig safely by complying with the Arkansas Underground Facilities Damage Prevention Act and calling 811.”

To read the complaint against Ground Zero Construction Inc., click here.

About Attorney General Tim Griffin

Tim Griffin was elected attorney general of Arkansas on November 8, 2022. He was elected lieutenant governor of Arkansas on November 4, 2014, and was re-elected for his second four-year term on November 6, 2018. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24^th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District. For the 113^th Congress, he was a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority. In the 112^th Congress, he served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for over 25 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and served with the 101^st Airborne Division (Air Assault in Mosul, Iraq). He is currently serving as the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) for the 81^st Readiness Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Prior to his current post, Griffin served as the Commander of the 134^th Legal Operations Detachment (LOD) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and a senior legislative advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin holds a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush. Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.

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