Posted on 07/08/2015 10:06:27 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Actor Tom Selleck has been stealing truckloads of water from a hydrant for his 60-acre ranch and avocado farm in California, according to a lawsuit filed by a water district.
The Magnum P.I. star and his wife Jillie Mack are accused of dispatching a white truck to a neighboring valley at least 12 times since 2013 to retrieve gallons of precious water, which is in short supply during the historic drought.
To catch him, Calleguas Municipal Water District has spent $22,000 on a private investigator, the Sun Sentinel reported.
But even after they were issued with a cease-and-desist notice, the lawsuit claims, the Sellecks continued to swipe tankloads from Thousand Oaks to bring back to Hidden Valley in Westlake Village, where they have lived for 30 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Maybe it's a 60 acre farm.
Sorry but the dressing in made in a factory(which I am looking at currently through my office window) in Reno, NV.
Agricultural ambiguity. If you raise pigs or hogs you have a pig farm or a hog farm. It’s never called a pig ranch or a hog ranch.
Ironically, spoiled avocados are fed to hogs.
60 acres is a “ranch” in CA the same way two rifles and 100 rounds of ammo are an “arsenal” in MA.
Allegedly, they could have just called it spillage from Bab’s swimming pool, but that water would make the crops taste funny.
Selleck is definitely NOT GUILTY !
“Blue Bloods” is about my husband’s favorite tv show. Selleck is a good ACTOR. That whole scenario on BB is a total lie as far as how any of the actors on it really live. (Husband would like the total “entire extended family sitting down to dinner together every night”; but somebody has to cook it & most won’t. They like to eat; but cooking ain’t their thing.) I’m getting too old for that now; so he lives vicariously through shows like “Blue Bloods”. - I remember Selleck more for the “Jesse Stone” boozing public official show from a while back.
Average water truck is about 2,000 gallons. Anything larger than that requires a large semi-truck chassis. So they claim he stole 24,0000 gallons of water. if the minimum monthly water bill was $40 and it allowed up 1000 gallons of water than his bill would be $960. But there are lot of water utilities that actually use a declining rate where you pay less per gallon for each threshold noted in the rate.
For instance the first threshold is 1,000 gallons, the next might be 5,000 gallons and so on.
As a former Public Works Director for a small city of 17,000, we were always on the look out for water theft from fire hydrants or illegal connections. If caught we would estimate the amount used based upon various factors and make them pay. Then they would also be required to rent a city owned fire hydrant meter which we could read on a monthly basis.
It wasn’t a felony in my city
You’re exactly right. If he were a leftist like Alec Baldwin no one would say a word.
I had read most of the Jesse Stone books before watching the movies, was expecting the final book when Parker died.
Murder and mayhem all the time in a town called Paradise....
Yeah it would have been whoever pull the water that would have been charged. You have to have a permit and a water co supplied meter to legally attach to a hydrant, or at least in Florida.
It should be called "Oleo Acres - the Cheaper Spread".
Wait a minute, were they even under restriction then?
This site says they had a meeting in May for regulations to take effect on 1 June.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/04/02/50747/california-drought-restrictions-faq-what-the-gover/
Regardless, it is unlikely that they were taking from a hydrant without a city approved keyed meter, as most municipalities issue. We have a service that brings water from a hydrant. They are billed by the county. There are very few ranches or farms that have their own water trucks that go into the city to retrieve water and none without meter permits. I know of no one with a ranch under 500 acres who has their own water truck that goes off ranch. I doubt a 60 acre place does. I sincerely doubt Selleck has his own truck and HE certainly is not doing it HIMSELF. He has a manager, foreman, employee do it. Finally, the article says more than a dozen loads over 2 years. At 3000 gallons a load (average) times 13 that’s less than 40k gallons. Over 2 years that’s slightly over 100 gallons a day. Oooooo! I ran 200 acres of grapes and could use 20k a day. No idea how thirsty avocados are. I think this article is skewed.
If you knew Hidden Valley, you would not call even an acre lot there “cheap”. Outrageously expensive horse country populated by the 1%.
1/4 section is 160 acres. So less than 1/8 of a section. :-)
Here in Florida a license to fill tankers from a hydrant is $75 a year... most people simply have a gasoline pump on the truck and fill up at a lake.
OJ had a police “chase” in a white bronco.
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