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Water rustlers caught wet-handed

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Out in the Wild West, horse rustlers caught in the act were hanged from the closest tree.

Today, in the middle of a drought that makes the storied Death Valley Days look semitropical, you can’t give most horses away.

But water?

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A prized possession of a different color.

In the City in the Country, water rustlers in fire uniforms were caught wet-handed but, so far, no one has swung.

You have to wonder why.

A quick review of the reported facts:

Powegian Tom Carter had a problem. Charles Dilts, a board member of the San Pasqual Fire Department, had a solution.

Carter was in the process of connecting his property to Poway’s main water line, which is metered, but, in the meantime, he needed a big slug of water to his near-dry well to keep his landscaping from dying.

Commentary: More Logan Jenkins columns about our region

So Dilts, who knew Carter from church, tells Fire Chief Chris Kisslinger to send a tender over to Poway to hydrate his friend’s well.

Poway vigilantes with camera phones caught the truck filling up at a city hydrant. The jig was up.

Instead of a necktie party, Poway sent a $1,000 bill to San Pasqual’s department.

Dilts made out a check from Buckheart Ministries, a nonprofit that, one presumes, is not in the business of insuring the screwups of the fire department.

“We were trying to do a good deed and sometimes good deeds do not go unpunished,” Chief Kisslinger would later say.

What?

You drive into another jurisdiction where you have no business being, pump out thousands of gallons of unmetered water, pass off the suck as some sort of “training exercise,” deliver the water to a friend of a board member, and call that a “good deed.”

That’s like stealing a horse to help a friend plow a field and, while calling it an “agricultural tutorial,” patting yourself on the back for performing a Boy Scout-worthy act of charity.

“Was it a wrong action?” Chief Kisslinger asked U-T reporter J. Harry Jones. “It turned out wrong. Was it the right intention? It sure was.”

By that logic, anyone could tap into a foreign hydrant “for a friend” and declare intentions as pure as the driven Sierra snow.

If the state drought gets worse, if wells dry up in droves, water rustling, government and private, will spread like wildfire.

Home Depot may need to stock more rope.

logan.jenkins@utsandiego.com

(760) 529-4917

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