I shook his hand. It did not excuse what had happened, but I was glad he understood the specific failure. Blaming a single contractor for everything would have been as misleading as blaming the entire water crisis on the man who closed the valve. A system can fail when several people each surrender a small part of their responsibility to somebody who sounds certain.
Diane initially denied having approved an unsafe tie-in. She said the work order signature covered a general landscaping project, not the detailed installation that followed. The evidence did not allow investigators to treat that claim as impossible merely because she was difficult or had lied about ownership. They compared the versions of the work order, obtained emails discussing the Phase Two water supply, and questioned the people who had prepared the specifications.
One exchange showed Diane asking whether a connection could be completed before the county permit review because the developer had a grading schedule to meet. Another included the phrase no county ticket in the forwarded notes. The investigation found that she had received warnings about backflow requirements before the work began and had still approved a schedule that avoided inspection. Those documents made her knowledge of the risk more than a matter of interpretation.
The district attorney's office eventually filed charges arising from the unauthorized interference with a permitted water system and related false statements made during the incident. The precise charges were narrower than some residents wanted. People who had called for Diane to face every imaginable offense were disappointed when prosecutors explained that guilt required proof of particular legal elements, not merely proof that her leadership had been harmful. I was relieved to hear somebody state that limit out loud.
I testified about the system and the timeline, not about whether Diane had always been a bad person. I explained why I closed the valve, what the tests showed, and how the new connection created a risk. I admitted my own reporting delay before the defense could present it as a secret. When asked whether I had been angry about unpaid invoices, I said yes, then explained that anger did not change the contamination findings or make the unsafe connection disappear.
The prosecutor asked whether I would have closed the main valve if every invoice had been paid. "Immediately," I answered. "If the readings and warnings had been the same, the response would have been the same. A child does not become safer because an account is current."
The defense tried to make the conflict about personal resentment. Its questions returned repeatedly to Diane's offer to buy the system, my refusal to supply Phase Two, and the amount Cedar Hollow owed. Those facts were relevant to motive on both sides, but they did not explain the absent backflow assembly or the unauthorized bypass. The judge allowed the questions while requiring the testimony to remain connected to the actual events.
Diane eventually entered a plea under an agreement that included a fifteen-month custodial sentence, restitution obligations totaling $132,500 for documented losses and remediation, and a separate $25,000 civil administrative penalty. The agreement resolved some counts and left the associated regulatory findings intact. The court reviewed whether she understood the terms, and she answered in a voice so subdued I barely recognized it. She was no longer speaking from a lectern with a room full of residents waiting to applaud.