"The existing study is for a hundred and eighty-six houses," I told him. "Not another two hundred and forty."
Diane clasped her hands. "We understand the system may need upgrades. That's why we're proposing to acquire the water rights and associated equipment. Not your land, Kenneth. We wouldn't expect you to sell the family property. Just the system rights and appurtenances. You could retire from day-to-day operations with a fair payment."
She slid a one-page term sheet toward me. The number at the top was larger than the outstanding service account, and smaller than I suspected the developer would eventually spend grading a single street. Below it were phrases about exclusive access, irrevocable operating authority, and the right to modify facilities as necessary for future development.
I noticed the word appurtenances because lawyers use it when they want a short sentence to cover a great deal of physical ground.
"Who would operate it?" I asked.
"A professional firm," Hale replied.
"Which one? What's its license number?"
"That would be determined during transition."
I shook my head. "You can't determine that after transition. And you don't have the water you think you do."
I took out the drawdown charts I'd brought from the pump house. They showed what happened to the well level during demand peaks and how long it took to recover. During an ordinary week we were well within the permitted operating range. During the driest Augusts we came close enough to the planning limit that I scheduled preventive maintenance around lower-demand hours. A new subdivision more than doubling the number of service connections would require extensive testing, approvals, engineering work, and probably another independent source.
I went through the figures carefully, explaining pump capacity, storage turnover, and what a declining static water level could mean for farms and domestic wells outside the subdivision. If they overdrew the aquifer, the consequences wouldn't stop at Diane's fence. The Hendersons might lose pressure, but so might Mrs. Avery down the road, and the cattle farms that had never signed an agreement with Cedar Hollow at all.
Hale stopped smiling. Robert Keene looked at the graph for a long time, turning it sideways as though the slopes might become friendlier from a different angle.
Diane folded her arms. "Everything is negotiable, Kenneth."
"Water isn't."
"That's an emotional answer."
"It's a measurement."
For a moment she said nothing. Then she rolled up the plans and handed me my charts with two fingers.
"I'll assume this isn't your final position," she said.
"It is until a real study tells us different."
I drove home angry at the waste of an afternoon, but relieved to have ended the discussion plainly. I thought if she knew the well couldn't do what she wanted, she'd find another source or scale down her plans. That assumption was almost as naive as believing the fence was merely decorative.