To bring you up to date...a judge ordered the outlet or culvert for the lake changed to a new location and dropped to a lower elevation. He also issued the order that none of our family could be on our land that day and the upstream landowner could use his engineer to survey in the culvert. My son owns the land on both sides of the road and there is a FWS wetlands easement on both sides. This change in the point of release would move the flow from a grass waterway to an open cultivated field (with a drop in elevation of 45 feet the first half mile) and lower the lake another three feet.

Meanwhile, my son received permission in the fall of 1998 to dig a channel across his land to contain the flow of water from the new lake culvert proposed by the court. (An 18 inch pipe at full flow.) On April 13, 1999 my son rented a track type backhoe and dug a ditch on the steep part of his land. The ditch was three feet wide and 18 inches deep and about 1200 feet long. (It drops 2.5 feet drop for every 100 feet of length.) Now Landowner A is at the top. Landowner C a half mile downstream and my son is Landowner B. On April 14th the ditch is dug. April 15th - Landowner C files a lawsuit against B for damages and files a complaint with the local water resource board (which I chair). The water board goes to court and orders my son’s ditch closed. Everyone has decided the water from an 18 inch pipe coming down a hill at 100 feet per minute (65 gallons per second) will cause more damage in a ditch then it will fanned out.

The lake culvert was installed on April 19th, with three sheriff deputies on hand so no one will get shot. The water came down the hill and made the first mile in a hour. As the water comes to the edge of my son’s land it comes to a standstill. This is a fairly level area of about two acres with a dead end ditch and a rock pile for a backstop creating a pond.

May 10th - At a court hearing the judge dismissed the complaint of the water board against my son. The really sad part is that my son has lost about ten acres of Class I land and now has a ditch about three feet deep which cuts the quarter in two parcels. It has been farmed east and west since homestead days and now we have to get out on the road to get to the other side. The worst part is the fact that Landowner D has lost about ten acres and Landowner A didn’t gain over two or three acres.

This case in my view will come down to private property rights and the right to use of the land. As of this writing there are those who would hide behind a rock. I hope it doesn’t get too crowded.

Farm safely.