The controversy over injecting storm water into the ground over an aquifer only 600-feet from a well owned by the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District just got uglier.

Last week the district learned from a customer that when she tried to visit the district’s website she was directed to the city of Issaquah’s website.

“It immediately took you there,” said Jay Krauss, general manager of the district.

The district has two websites: sammplat.wa.org and letstalkaboutourwater.org. Issaquah set up two Internet domains almost identical to the district websites: sammplat.org (they left out the wa) and letstalkaboutourwater.com (instead of .org).

“This is our main website,” Krauss said. “It’s absolutely unheard of for one governmental body to hijack another’s website.”

In the Internet world this practice is known as cybersquatting or typosquatting.

“The city’s attempt to take over portions of the district has been repeatedly attributed to resolving ‘customer confusion,’” Krauss said. “However, the city’s purposeful misdirection of district customers to the city’s website demonstrates an unethical intent. This intentionally creates the very ‘customer confusion’ the city claims it wants to alleviate by their assumption actions. While we may have divergent views on controversial issues, the district struggles to understand how any web address containing ‘sammplat’ could have any direct relationship to the city of Issaquah other than intentionally hijacking district customer web traffic.”

Krauss said the domains were reserved under the name Warren Kagarise, a city staff member. He doesn’t know who in the city administration approved the action.

Krauss sent a letter to Issaquah Mayor Ava Frisinger and the Issaquah City Council on Sept. 11, requesting that the city immediately take down the deceptive websites which directed district customers to Issaquah’s website.

Frisinger responded to a Sept. 11 letter from the district with her own the next day.

“Thank you for your letter concerning the URLs. I am gratified to see that both agencies are serious about minimizing customer confusion. In light of the district’s misinformation campaign, administration directed a staff member to reserve these URLs. Per your request, you’ll find that both no longer direct users to the city’s website,” Frisinger said.

Krauss said Frisinger didn’t expand on “misinformation.”

“We would differ on misinformation v. public outreach,” Krauss said.