See, I’m winning. Her posture screamed. What are you going to do about it, Mr. Mloud. What I was doing was spending my days in my greatgrandfather’s study and my nights in the pump house at the base of the dam. The study was a treasure trove. Angus Mloud was a meticulous recordkeeper. I found his original engineering blueprints for the dam, his handpinned calculations on flow rates, spillway capacity, and structural integrity.
But the most important discovery was his journal. Tucked into a passage from 1,928. I found what I was looking for. He wrote, “The lake reaches its fullest extent at an elevation of 1845 ft above sea level. This is the natural high water mark dictated by the topography of the valley. For safety and recreational use, I have engineered the primary slle gates to maintain the water level at a constant one 838 ft.
However, the integrity of the structure and the spillway is designed to easily withstand the full one 845 ft level in the event of a generational flood. 7 ft. That was the magic number. Seven vertical feet of elevation difference between the lakes’s current artificially maintained level and its true natural shoreline.
7 ft that Angus had engineered as a safety buffer. 7 ft of pure liquid justice. I pulled out my topographical maps and my survey data and started plotting. My own land, including my lodge, was well above the 1850 ft contour line. But the 50 acres Brenda had stolen, the land where her 139 cabins were being hastily erected, it was a gentle, beautiful slope.
The lowest cabin foundations were sitting at 1839 ft. The highest were just shy of 1844 ft. They were all nestled comfortably within my 7- ft buffer. They were all technically in the lake bed. My next step was the dam itself. I had maintained it my whole life as my father had before me. The mechanics were beautifully simple, a testament to 1,920s engineering.
