What in the hell is going on here?

That, dear readers, is the only possible reaction to the latest revelations about golf course developer Bill Walters, who’s had more sweetheart deals in this town than the U.S. Air Force has bombs. And, for the life of us, we just can figure it out.

First, let’s review the latest:

• The Review-Journal, in the person of David McGrath Schwartz, reported Sunday that Walters is getting treated wastewater to irrigate three of his golf courses at a fraction of what other courses pay.

At Royal Links, the golf course that Walters very nearly got permission to turn into a subdivision, he’s paying a mere 24 cents per 1,000 gallons of so-called gray water. Although Walters initially said he wasn’t going to need city water at the course, he eventually decided to buy from the city’s nearby sewage treatment plant. Alas, this information would have been much more helpful before the city awarded the bid to Walters, but let’s not kid ourselves; he would have gotten the lease — and eventually the purchase — of the 160-acre Royal Links property anyway.

And at Desert Pines, where the city built a wastewater treatment plant specifically for Walters’ course (the plant has no other customers) he pays a mere 46 cents per 1,000 gallons. McGrath’s story reveals that the city in 1996 signed a contract with Walters for the still cut-rate price of $1.03 per 1,000 gallons, with up to a 5 percent increase per year, and ends with this classic line: “It is unclear when, and why, the $1.03 per 1,000 gallons price was reduced to the current rate of 46 cents.”

Why the outrage? Other courses pay $1.85 per 1,000 gallons, in part to pay off the construction of a special plant built to supply water to them. David Bogue, general manager of the Angel Park golf course, said it best: “Wow, I would want that deal. It’s definitely unfair. There are no sour grapes other than I wish everyone was on a level playing field.”

(Full disclosure: We at Various Things & Stuff have been taking golf lessons at Angel Park. So far, we suck. Badly.)

• And my friend and colleague Jon Ralston reported in his Sunday column in the Las Vegas Sun on two people who have stood up to Walters and the elected officials who supply his erotic rubdowns (with happy endings!) at City Council meetings.

Unfortunately, we learned in his piece that Lori Wohletz, the city’s soon-to-be-former environmental officer, felt compelled to resign her post in the wake of the city’s approval of homes to be built as close as 20 feet from the boundary of the city’s sewage treatment plant, possibly requiring millions more to be spent for odor control. She resigned after City Manager Doug Selby, perhaps finally realizing how bad the entire deal looked, issued an e-mail attempting to explain the Walters deals.

And, in a scoop, Ralston revealed John Redlein, a deputy city attorney, was demoted the day after he blew the whistle on Walters to some council members by revealing possibly felonious acts committed back in 1997-1999 with regard to the Royal Links land.

So, the only two people who were interested in the truth (not to mention protecting taxpayers from being sold out by top city management and a majority on the City Council) are forced out and demoted, while Walters continues to get special favors unavailable to anybody else from local governments?

What the hell?

We note that our friend and colleague Erin Neff, the Review-Journal’s political reporter, talked with U.S. Rep. Jon Porter about returning money donated by some of the more felonious fellow members of his Republican Party.

(Porter has taken lots of money from indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and confessed bribe-taker, former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-San Diego.)

Well, Porter is giving the $11,000 he took from Cunningham to charity, on the basis that Cunningham confessed to wrongdoing. He’s keeping the DeLay money, however, because — despite a long and colorful record of despicable actions in Congress — DeLay has yet to be convicted of anything. Yet.

“Porter has established conviction as the bar for returning contributions,” Neff wrote.

Isn’t the really sad thing here the fact that Porter has to establish a bar for returning contributions in the first place? Even so, we salute his strong commitment to ethics, honor and integrity.