"Agency Misspent $32 Million, But Interior Has Held No One To Account"

"WASHINGTON -- Investigators have confirmed that a federal water agency misspent $32 million in funds meant to protect fish and wildlife in the Klamath basin of California and Oregon, a finding that Obama-era officials attempted to sideline after whistleblowers first alerted them to it.

According to a report from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, sent to President Donald Trump and obtained this week by McClatchy, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for eight years effectively handed the money to a Klamath water project controlled by private irrigators, with few or no controls on how the funds were spent.

The bureau, part of the Interior Department, shut down the water bank in 2016 after two whistleblowers alleged it was transferring money to irrigators that was intended for environmental purposes. But agency leaders have continued to dispute any wrongdoing and have apparently taken no administrative action against those responsible."

Stuart Leavenworth reports for the McClatchy Washington Bureau August 29, 2017.