The primary controls for the two main SLLE gates were a pair of massive 36in cast iron wheel valves located in the dry gallery. A concrete tunnel running through the heart of the dam. They were manually operated. Turning those wheels was a workout. It took hundreds of rotations to fully open or close the gates. A deliberate design to prevent accidental or sudden changes in water level.
It was slow, ponderous, and unstoppable. I spent a week down there, inspecting every gear, greasing every fitting, checking the seals. Everything was in perfect working order. A silent, powerful machine waiting for a command. While the HOA was busy pouring concrete, I was preparing my case. I wasn’t just relying on my inherited power. I documented everything.
I set up time-lapse cameras overlooking the construction site. I flew a drone over the area weekly, taking highresolution aerial photographs that clearly showed the cabins being built well below the 1 845- ft contour line, which I had marked on the images. I contacted the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, sending them a report with photos showing the lack of silt fences, the clear cutting of the riparian buffer zone, and the potential for septic runoff from 139 new cabins built without proper permits. They sent Brenda a
notice of violation, which she promptly ignored. She felt invincible. Her lawyers were fighting my injunction in court, burying my attorney in paperwork, delaying and obfuscating. She believed the system would protect her. She failed to understand that I had access to a system far older and more powerful than the county court.
The final piece of the puzzle was legal. I needed to be absolutely certain that my actions would be defensible. My lawyer, a shrewd old country attorney named Sam, was initially a gasast at my plan. You want to do what? he asked, peering at me over his spectacles. But then I laid it all out. The deeds, the riparian rights documents establishing my ownership of the lake bed up to the natural high water mark, Angus’ journal, the topographical survey data.
My right to control the water level for the purpose of maintaining the dam and ensuring its safety was explicitly written into the original deed. We drafted a final formal letter. It was a masterpiece of legal pros. It informed the Lake View Pinnacle Estates HOA that they had illegally constructed 139 structures on my private property, specifically within the designated flood easement of the Loch Mloud Dam.
It stated that for urgent and necessary structural inspections and maintenance as recommended by a hydraological engineer me the lake would need to be temporarily returned to its documented natural maximum elevation of 1845 ft. It gave them a deadline 48 hours to evacuate any personnel and remove any property from the clearly demarcated easement zone.
We sent it via certified mail with a signature required. I knew Brenda would sign for it. I pictured her reading it, scoffing, and tossing it into the trash. Another piece of harassment from the man up the hill. And that’s exactly what she did. The day after the letter was delivered, they started moving in furniture. The morning of the deadline was calm and overcast.
A gentle mist hung over the lake, muffling the sounds of the construction crew as they put the finishing touches on the cabins. They were installing curtains and stacking firewood on the tiny porches. It had a surreal, almost theatrical quality. They were literally dressing the set for a disaster movie. My 48-hour notice had been ignored, just as I knew it would be.
I received no calls, no emails, just the arrogant silence of people who believe rules don’t apply to them. At 9 0 a.m., the exact moment the deadline expired, I drove my truck down to the dam. I had a thermos of coffee, a portable speaker playing some classic rock, and a sense of grim methodical purpose. Before I started, I made two calls.
The first was to the sheriff’s office. I informed the dispatcher that as the owner and operator of the Loach Mloud Dam, I was commencing a standard non-emergency maintenance procedure that would involve slowly raising the water level to the documented high water mark of 1845 ft over the next 12 to 24 hours. I told them all adjacent property owners had been notified in writing.
The dispatcher was a bit confused but made a note of it. My second call was to Sam, my lawyer. It’s time, I said. Godspeed, he replied. I’ve got the injunction paperwork ready to file Monday morning, citing their failure to vacate the easement as proof of immediate and irreparable harm, but I knew we wouldn’t need it. Then I went to work.
I entered the cool, echoing concrete gallery of the dam. The air smelled of damp stone and old machinery. I walked to the first massive wheel valve, the one controlling the primary north gate. I put my hands on the cold iron, took a deep breath, and began to turn. It was stiff at first, resisting decades of static peace.
Then, with a groan of metal and a shudder that I felt through the soles of my boots, it started to move. The gearing system whined to life, a low, powerful sound that vibrated through the structure. A small indicator needle on the wall began to creep from closed toward open. Outside, deep beneath the surface of the lake, a multi-tonon steel gate was slowly, inch by inch, beginning to slide upward, reducing the outflow of the creeks that fed the lock.
I turned and turned and turned. It was exhausting work. Each rotation was a physical effort. I switched to the second wheel for the south gate and repeated the process. For the next 3 hours, I moved between the two wheels, steadily, cranking them open, following the operational sequence outlined in my great-grandfather’s notes.
I wasn’t just dumping the lake. I was curtailing its exit. The dam wasn’t failing. It was functioning perfectly, precisely as it had been designed to. It was simply obeying a new command. The three creeks that fed Loach Mloud now poured more water in than the partially closed gates were letting out. The lake began to rise.
It was almost imperceptible at first. An inch then another. If you weren’t watching for it, you wouldn’t notice, but I was watching. I left the gallery and went to my favorite vantage point, the promontory near my lodge. I had a pair of powerful binoculars and a spotting scope. Around noon, I saw the first sign.
The water, which normally lapped a good 20 ft away from the lowest row of cabins, was now gently touching the edge of the new, hastily laid turf. By 1 0 p.m., the water was covering their tiny front yards. The construction crew, returning from their lunch break, were the first to notice. I saw a group of them standing and pointing.
One man walked to the edge of the water, then looked back at his foremen, shrugging. They probably assumed it was a natural fluctuation. An hour later, they were no longer shrugging. The water was now licking at the concrete slabs of the first tier of cabins. I could see the four men on his phone just ticulating wildly. Panic is a contagion.
It started with the crew, then spread as a couple of HOA board members, who had come to inspect the new furniture, arrived on the scene. I watched through my binoculars as Brenda’s white escalade pulled up. She got out, hands on her hips, her body language radiating pure fury. She clearly thought this was some trick, some temporary plumbing issue.
She marched toward the water’s edge, her expensive sandals sinking into the now soden ground. The water was visibly rising now, creeping up the sides of the foundations. It wasn’t a wave. It was a slow, inexurable tide. Her shouting was too far away for me to hear, but I could imagine it.
It was the sound of someone whose entire world built on bluff and bluster was dissolving in front of her. By 4 0 p.m. the lowest cabins were islands. The water was halfway up their doors. Electrical systems were shorting out. I saw a few porch lights flicker and die. Pallets of unused building materials floated away like tiny barges. The site was biblical.
Nature wasn’t raging. It was just calmly, quietly reclaiming its own. This wasn’t a flood. It was an eviction, and the water kept rising. Higher and higher it climbed, claiming cabin after cabin, a silent, liquid tide of consequence. The fallout was spectacular, and it unfolded exactly as I knew it would.
By evening, the water level had risen by nearly 5 ft. It swamped the first four rows of cabins completely, filling them with murky lake water, ruining drywall, flooring, and the brand new furniture. The highest cabins had water halfway up their walls. The entire Pinnacle Cabin’s development, Brenda’s multi-million dollar monument to her own hubris, was a waterlogged disaster zone.
My phone started ringing just after the sheriff’s deputy, the same one from the property line dispute, showed up at the end of my driveway. He was joined by a frantic, sputtering Brenda. He’s flooding us out. He’s destroying our property. Arrest him, she was screeching, pointing a trembling finger up toward my lodge. The deputy walked up to my porch, looking tired.
Sir, he said, “Miss Mclofflin here is making some pretty serious accusations. I just smiled calmly, handed him a cold bottle of water, and gave him the full tour. I showed him the certified mail receipt for the notice we had sent. I showed him my great-grandfather’s blueprints, the deed specifying my riparian rights, and the section of the operational manual detailing the procedure for raising the lake to the one 845 ft high water mark for maintenance.
I explained that I was the dam’s legal operator and was performing a long overdue structural integrity test, a procedure for which I had a professional obligation as an engineer and a legal right as the owner. I pointed down at the submerged cabins. Deputy, I said, as far as I’m concerned, all I see is an unauthorized debris field that someone illegally dumped in my lakes’s flood easement.
I gave them 48 hours notice to remove it. They chose not to. He looked at my meticulous documentation. Then, down at the shrieking mess Brenda had become, and the truth began to dawn on him. He wasn’t looking at a crime scene. He was looking at a self-inflicted wound, he walked back down and told her once again that this was a civil matter.
The look on her face, illuminated by the flashing lights of his cruiser, was a glorious cocktail of impotent rage and dawning horror. The aftermath was a slow motion demolition derby of finances and reputations. The investors behind Pinnacle Living, who had backed Brenda’s aggressive expansion, were horrified. Their insurance company took one look at the situation, the fraudulent survey, the lack of permits, the blatant construction within a documented flood easement and denied their claim.
They labeled it gross negligence. The homeowners in Lake View Pinnacle Estates, who had paid a premium for lakefront property, were now faced with a swamp of half-submerged, rotting cabins and the realization that their HOA president had led them into a legal and financial quagmire. The class action lawsuits began to fly, not just against Brenda and the HOA, but against the developers, the construction company, and the now defunct surveyor.
Brenda’s little kingdom crumbled. She was voted out in a humiliating emergency meeting. Her Escalade seen leaving the gated community for the last time a week later. The HOA itself went bankrupt, trying to settle the lawsuits. The developers cut their losses and sold the remaining land for pennies on the dollar to a conservation trust.
But for me, the story wasn’t over. I left the water at the 1845 ft level for a full month. I wanted to make a point. I let the lake water do its work, soaking into every joint, warping every board and filling the cabins with a permanent layer of silt and muck. When I was satisfied, I returned to the dam and over another 12 hours slowly lowered the water back to its normal recreational level of 1838 ft.
The scene that was revealed was one of utter devastation. The 139 cabins were a wreck. Mold had taken hold. Windows were broken and a foul stench hung in the air. The HOA and the developers declared bankruptcy and officially abandoned them. And so I was left with 139 derelik structures on my land. I hired a salvage crew and a demolition team.
We spent the better part of a year tearing them down, hauling away the debris, and remediating the land. It was a massive expensive cleanup, but I paid for it by selling the scrap metal pre-fabricated components and by winning a significant court judgment against the developer’s parent company for trespass and damages. Once the last cabin was gone, I brought in a landscape architect who specialized in ecosystem restoration.
We replanted the entire 50 acre stretch with native trees, shrubs, and grasses. We restored the natural contours of the shoreline. Within 2 years, you couldn’t even tell the cabins had ever been there. The oak trees are growing back, the birds have returned, and the quiet has settled back over Lo Mloud.
Sometimes, new residents from the chasened, reorganized HOA will paddle by in a canoe and wave up at my lodge. They know the story. They know who owns the lake, and they know who controls the water. I never set out to be a villain or a hero. I just wanted to be left alone on the land my family had cared for for a century.
Brenda and her HOA saw my heritage as a commodity and my patience as weakness. They learned that some lines shouldn’t be crossed and that nature, when properly directed, is the ultimate arbiter of justice. And that’s how I fixed 139 HOA violations in one go. Thanks for listening to my story. I’ll catch you on the next one.
