Someone is stealing our water. Many someones. But who and how much? No one knows today, mostly because the agency responsible for keeping an eye on water rights and use–the State Water Resources Control Board–is blind, deaf, and dumb.
Blind, because they don’t look. Deaf, because they don’t listen to or act on most requests to investigate water rights allocations and use. Dumb, because they don’t talk about these issues. “Asleep at the switch,” as a colleague describes it.
