He leaned over the fence, grinning, and said, still counting my trash pile, neighbor. So I said I was, actually, and I told him the environmental code officer had all twelve weeks of photos and had penciled in a site inspection for Friday morning to test the drainage.
Because I had not taken the bait. I photographed every load, date and time, a wide shot showing his truck and a close shot showing what came off it. Twelve weeks. And I read up on what you can and cannot dump near a residential water source, and it turned out to be a lot of cannot.
For all those weeks the only thing I had lacked was proof it was him and proof of where it drained, and the moment I had twelve weeks of dated photos showing his truck and the runoff heading toward my well, the man trying to control land that isn’t mine became a documented dumping case near a drinking-water source.
He had made me the sourpuss at the block party while his wife left baked goods on my porch for everyone to see. But a well is a well, and the county does not laugh off contamination the way a block party does.
I did not take the bait then and I did not take it now. I said, this is twelve weeks of photos, your truck, the drywall, the shingles, the cans, and the runoff crossing toward my well. The environmental officer has every one. He is coming Friday to test the drainage. You can keep telling the street I am after your land, but the county is going to test my water now.
The photos were the photos. There is no it’s-basically-the-property-line-ing your way out of twelve weeks of your own truck dumping toward a neighbors well.
The county did what my one mention over the fence never could. The officer confirmed the illegal dumping near a water source, and the man was ordered to remove every bit of it, haul it to a proper facility, and never discharge toward the easement again, with the drainage tested to be sure.
The tree line is clean now. My well tested safe, which is the only thing I had ever actually been afraid for.
He can remodel all he likes; he just has to take his debris to the dump like everyone else. Twelve weeks of watching my water get threatened ended not with a fight at the fence, but with twelve weeks of quiet photos and a drainage test, and it turned out the man accused of controlling land he didn’t own was just the only one protecting the water under it.