Blog: A brazen California water heist revealed, prosecuted & punished
Recently, former Panoche Drainage District general manager Dennis Falaschi pled guilty in federal district court in Fresno to having conspired to steal millions of gallons of publicly-owned water from California’s Central Valley Project (CVP) for private gain. This surreptitious water theft apparently had been going on for well over two decades before Falaschi was finally brought to justice. … Unfortunately, the Falaschi case and conviction are not isolated incidents. To the contrary, illegal diversion, use and black market sales of the public’s finite and precious water supplies have quite likely gone on for decades, if not centuries.