About SIPHONED

“The job is to name the diverters, the permit brokers, the quiet buyers, the auditors who never audit, the men who meter water that was never theirs to meter … So: measure, file, wait, request again, sit through the hearing, publish, repeat.” — Dolores Sarkany, 1931–2009

Accountability reporting on the water economy.

It is not your shower that emptied the valley. Your dishwasher, your lawn, the almonds in your cupboard — these are not the reason four counties in the basin ran dry in a single season last year.

No; most of the loss belongs to the holders of senior rights, the districts that trade them, the packers who pump through the night, and the regulators who look the other way. That is why I started this letter: to trace where the water goes after it leaves the aquifer, and who signs for it.

If you subscribe, you will get one original investigation and one document drop in your inbox every week. Public water is a public record, and it should not take a lawyer and eleven months to read it. This letter does that part for you.