The eighty acres had not become wet out of nowhere. The altered upstream drainage had overwhelmed Warren's agricultural drainage system, but it had done so across ground that possessed an older relationship with water than Warren's generation had allowed itself to remember.
Renata's work moved on a parallel track.
She obtained county-approved drainage drawings for the development. The plans showed new road ditches, stormwater collection areas, culverts, and the concrete outlet Warren had found on May 7. The design documentation assumed that discharge leaving the project would enter a receiving ditch and continue through a broader drainage network downstream. But when Renata compared the design to current conditions, she found that recent clearing and channel work had concentrated more of that discharge toward the Puit boundary than older maps suggested.
The model also used assumptions she wanted to test.
One afternoon she arrived with printed rainfall records covering more than twenty years. She and Casey sat at the kitchen table comparing storms that occurred before the development with storms after the outlet was installed.
"Look at these," Renata said.
She highlighted three events from earlier years. Each produced rainfall totals similar to or larger than storms that now flooded the eighty acres. Warren remembered two of them clearly. The low ground had stayed wet, but nothing like the sustained inundation Casey had measured.
Then Renata showed them the post-construction events. Less rainfall. Faster rise. Longer duration.
"That doesn't prove intent," she said. "But it strongly supports changed hydrologic response."
Warren tapped the paper. "Because of that outlet."
"Because of the system. I don't want to reduce a drainage network to one pipe if multiple features matter. But yes, the outlet and channel configuration are central."
She later installed temporary monitoring equipment at several points, including near the incoming ditch and within the low acreage. The instruments recorded water levels over time and allowed her to compare storm response more precisely. Casey learned how to download the data and began making graphs under Renata's supervision.
Warren walked into the kitchen one evening and found two women staring at colored lines on a laptop.
"That line costs me money every time it goes up," he said.
Casey pointed. "This one might make you some back."
"Don't get ahead of yourself."
Renata smiled. "She's learning."
The formal ecological evaluation began in August.
Claire Benton arrived with a soil scientist, a botanist, and a project manager from her mitigation company. Warren expected polished outsiders. Instead, they came in muddy trucks, carried field equipment, and spent two days covering more ground than most bank representatives had walked in ten years.
Claire was direct about the economics.
"We are not buying eighty wet acres from you," she said. "If this moves forward, we'd be evaluating a restoration project. We would need agency support for the concept, a baseline, restoration objectives, legal site protection, and a credible plan to produce ecological improvement beyond whatever condition exists today. The business value comes from approved credits released over time, not from a label."
"And if the agency says no?" Warren asked.
"Then we don't have a bank."
"And if they say yes?"
"Then we negotiate the landowner structure. You could sell the site, lease certain rights, or participate through an easement and revenue agreement depending on the sponsor model. But no one should promise you numbers until we understand what credit type and quantity are even possible."
Warren nodded. "Good."