MOSES LAKE, Wash. — A 57-year-old Moses Lake man was arrested on Aug. 17 after allegedly damaging and stealing two canal liners near the site of a recent irrigation canal breach.
According to a spokesperson from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office at around 2 p.m., a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) employee observed Ivan Puyu using a reciprocating saw to cut apart two large liners stored on an East Columbia Basin Irrigation District flatbed trailer. Deputies said that Puyu then loaded the damaged liners onto a trailer towed by his car. The USBR employee notified the irrigation district watermaster, who arrived at the scene and confronted Puyu. Puyu attempted to return the damaged liners to the trailer, but Moses Lake Police arrived before deputies and detained him.
Deputies said that Puyu claimed he was searching for material to use as underlayment for his children’s playground equipment and mistakenly thought the liners were discarded. He returned to the site with his trailer and saw, cut the liners into pieces and loaded them onto his trailer.
Puyu was booked into the Grant County Jail on charges of second-degree theft and second-degree malicious mischief. The irrigation district estimates the replacement cost of the two damaged 60′ x 36′ liners at nearly $3,000 according to deputies.
