"They were never supposed to hold that breeding stock," he said.
Daniel sat up straighter. "Who was supposed to hold it?"
"Qualified operators under the Riverstone arrangements. The old facility had approved sites, custody records, and a management structure. Silver Ridge acquired land around it, not every commercial right attached to the program. Some stock escaped during floods after the barriers deteriorated. Some was moved without adequate documentation. I've been trying for years to establish exactly where the registered animals went."
He opened his document case and took out a photograph so old its edges had begun to curl. It showed a row of small outdoor raceways beside a low processing shed, men standing in rubber boots, and several tubs of fish ready for tagging. The mountain ridge in the background looked familiar, even though the houses that now covered it did not exist when the picture was taken. Martin touched the corner of the photograph with one finger.
"My first job was helping keep records for this program," he said. "Nobody thought we were making history. We thought we were trying to breed healthier fish."
He explained how breeders had selected animals for growth and resilience through repeated generations and recorded the results as carefully as they could. Not every individual was exceptional, and not every claimed trait survived independent testing, but the program had produced lines valued by operators who wanted predictable stock. The small tags were part of that system, a way to keep physical animals tied to histories that could otherwise become meaningless once fish changed ponds.
"Why was the old facility abandoned?" I asked.
Martin looked toward the houses again. "Because land became worth more to developers than the work being done on it. The buildings aged, ownership changed, funding dried up, and maintenance slipped. The trust kept some rights and records, but controlling everything on the ground became difficult when the surrounding parcels were sold."
"And nobody told the new homeowners."
"Some of the original disclosures mentioned the corridor. Later documents became less specific. I've never been satisfied that the people promoting development here fully understood, or wanted buyers to understand, what had existed before their roads were laid down."
He took out a small map showing the original Riverstone site, the designated reserve waters, and the drainage channel. My pond was on it, marked as an approved private reserve location subject to a participating owner's consent and operating conditions. That was different from a standing easement or automatic fish ownership, but it established that the water had been evaluated for agricultural use decades earlier. The symbol Daniel found on the 1978 map now had an explanation.
"The pond was part of the program's plan," I said.
"A potential partner site, yes. That's a meaningful distinction. It was never an invitation for somebody to dump breeding animals here without telling the owner."