00:00HOA built 35 mansions on my land while I was overseas, so I opened the dam and let the
00:05water take it back.
00:06I came home from Afghanistan expecting my grandfather's pasture.
00:09Instead, I found concrete trucks, survey stakes, and an HOA neighborhood called Willowbrook
00:14Estates.
00:15Their president, Maggie, rolled up smiling and said my family had abandoned the land,
00:20so the HOA put it to good use.
00:22But they didn't just steal dirt, they'd diverted a creek protected by federal water
00:27rights, a dam my grandfather built with the Army Corps, and they were draining it into
00:31fountains for their brand new mansions.
00:34They even ran news stories calling me the problem.
00:37What Maggie didn't know, I used to be an Army Corps engineer, and buried in the courthouse
00:41archives was a 1923 water rights covenant that gave federal control over that creek.
00:47So while the HOA bragged about their luxury homes, I repaired the dam gates and called
00:52in federal inspectors.
00:53Then the rain came.
00:54The reservoir filled, and at sunrise, I pulled the controls.
00:58Millions of gallons surged down the original creek bed, straight through the foundations
01:03of those 35 mansions.
01:05News cameras rolled while Maggie screamed about flooding, but the inspectors corrected her.
01:10I didn't flood her neighborhood.
01:11I simply restored the creek she stole.
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