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The HOA Poisoned My Lake for Their Festival—Then the Hatchery Found Out #hoadrama — Transcript

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0:00Arrest him. He poisoned our lake.
0:03>> The water behind me was silver. Not the
0:06color of water, the color of fish.
0:08Thousands of them. Bluegill and bass and
0:10perch floating belly up from my
0:12grandfather's dock to the far bank,
0:14packed so tight you couldn't see the
0:17lake between them. The smell hit you in
0:19the back of the throat. Kendall our was
0:21standing on the boat ramp in white linen
0:23with her phone held up. Recording. She
0:25was president of the Clearwater Point
0:27Homeowners Association. Two state
0:29conservation officers were walking down
0:31the ramp toward me.
0:32>> That's him, Reed Hollister. Ma'am, he's
0:36been dumping chemicals and illegal fish
0:38in our lake for years now. Look at it.
0:41>> It's my lake. It's a community amenity.
0:44>> The lead officer stopped at the end of
0:46the dock. She looked at the water. She
0:48looked at me. Then she crouched down and
0:50put two fingers in the lake and brought
0:52them up to her nose. Her face changed.
0:55Mr. Hollister, she said quietly. Do you
0:58have your log book? In my truck. Get it,
1:00she said. Please. Kendall lowered her
1:02phone. What log book? Nobody answered
1:04her. 3 mi downstream. At that exact
1:07moment, a hatchery worker named Jean
1:09Oiler was walking along a concrete
1:12raceway with a net in his hand, watching
1:14200,000 baby trout turn on their sides.
1:17He didn't know yet where the water had
1:19come from. I did. I keep a log book
1:22because I teach high school biology and
1:24I don't trust my own memory. That's the
1:26honest reason.
1:28The better sounding reason is that for
1:30eight years I've been a volunteer water
1:32monitor for the Michigan Department of
1:34Natural Resources. Four times a year I
1:36take readings on my lake and send them
1:38to Lancing. Temperature, dissolved
1:41oxygen, pH, clarity, how far down you
1:45can see a black and white disc on a
1:47rope. My log for the first reading I
1:49ever took says it all in one line.
1:51Dissolved oxygen 8.6 clear to 12 ft.
1:55Grandpa watched. He did. He was 81. He
1:58sat on the dock in a lawn chair and
2:00asked what every number meant. What's
2:02dissolved oxygen? How much air the fish
2:04can breathe. An 8.6 is good. It's great,
2:07Grandpa. He nodded like I'd told him his
2:10blood pressure. Write it down then so
2:12somebody remembers what good looks like.
2:14I've been writing it down ever since.
2:16The lake is 3 acres springfed in the
2:19middle of 12 acres of Oxbow County woods
2:22that my grandfather Arthur Hollister
2:25bought in 1971.
2:27The spring comes up cold out of the
2:29gravel at the north end. The water
2:31leaves at the south end through a stone
2:33outlet he built by hand and runs 3 mi
2:36through a cedar swamp into Silver Run
2:38Creek. At the bottom of Silver Run Creek
2:41sits the Silverr Run State Fish
2:43Hatchery, where the DNR raises brook and
2:45brown trout for half the rivers in
2:47northern Michigan. The hatchery takes
2:49its water straight out of the creek.
2:51Cold, clean, and unfiltered. Trout need
2:54it that way. When Grandpa died, the land
2:56came to me. The deed says it plainly,
2:59and I've read it to more people this
3:00year than I ever wanted to, including
3:02the springfed lake and all repairarian
3:05rights there, too. Clearwater Point was
3:07built around us in 2006. 78 houses in a
3:11horseshoe on three sides of my property
3:13with my lake in the middle like the
3:14jewel in a ring. The developer brochure
3:18had an aerial photo of it on the cover.
3:20Private Lakeside Living. It was never
3:22theirs. The county plat excludes my
3:24parcel by number, but brochures last
3:27longer than plats. For years, nobody
3:29cared. Neighbors fished off the far
3:31bank. Kids swam. I said yes to everybody
3:34who asked. Then Kendallure moved in. She
3:37was 38, sold real estate, and ran the
3:40association's Instagram account like a
3:42luxury resort. Within a year, she was
3:44president. Within two, she had started
3:47charging every household a $150 a year
3:51as a lake amenity fee. I found out about
3:54the fee from a neighbor, a retired man
3:56named Earl Dystra, who'd fished off the
3:59far bank for 10 years with my
4:00permission, stopped me at the mailboxes.
4:03Reed, I paid my lake fee this year. Am I
4:06still allowed to fish your side? Your
4:08what? The lake amenity fee, 150. It's on
4:11the HOA bill. Earl, I've never charged
4:14anybody to fish. You didn't, he said.
4:16Kendall did. I found out the rest when
4:18she fined me. The first letter came in
4:20April. Red border HOA letterhead.
4:23Unauthorized use of community lake bylaw
4:2611.2. Fishing prohibited. Fine. $200. I
4:30walked it over to her house. Kendall,
4:32the lake is on my property. It's in my
4:34deed. She smiled the way you smile at a
4:37customer who's about to be difficult.
4:39Reed, the developer transferred the lake
4:41to the association. Show me. The
4:43management company has it. Then have
4:45them send it. I'll have them get to it,
4:47she said, and closed the door. I called
4:49the management company myself. A woman
4:52named Barb in the Grand Rapids office
4:54pulled up the file. Mr. Hollister, I
4:56don't see any transfer of the lake. None
4:58at all. There's the subdivision plant.
5:00It lists your parcel as excluded from
5:02common area. A pause. I've never seen a
5:06document giving the lake to the
5:07association. Would you put that in an
5:09email? Another pause. I'll need to check
5:12with my supervisor. The email never
5:14came. But I wrote down her name and the
5:16date and what she said. No transfer, no
5:18deed, nothing in their file. The fines
5:21went up anyway. 400 then 800 with a
5:24letter threatening a lean on my house. I
5:26sent the whole board certified copies of
5:28my deed. the county plat and the
5:31recorders chain of title. All five
5:33signed for them. None of them answered.
5:35In May, I went to a Clearwater Point
5:38board meeting. I'm not a member, but
5:40they're open to the public. When Kendall
5:43called for comments, I stood up with my
5:45deed. I'm Reed Hollister. I own the
5:47lake. I'd like to show the board my
5:49deed. Mr. Hollister has sent us some
5:51papers, Kendall told the room. Our
5:53attorney has reviewed the matter. Has
5:55anyone on the board actually read them?
5:57A man at the end of the table looked
5:59down at his hands. "Mr. Hollister
6:01teaches high school science," Kendall
6:03said, smiling at the residents. "He has
6:05a very strong fishing hobby." A few
6:07people laughed. "I also monitor that
6:09lake for the state," I said. "8 years."
6:12"Then the state can call us," Kendall
6:14said. "Next item." That was the spring.
6:16That was annoying. It wasn't dangerous
6:18yet. It got dangerous because of a
6:20festival. In June, Kendall announced
6:23Clearwater Point's first annual Lake
6:25Day. July 20th, a paddle board rental
6:28company, a food truck, a DJ on a
6:31floating platform, and a local TV
6:33station coming out to film it. The flyer
6:36showed a photo of my lake from a drone,
6:38turquoise and glittering. She came to my
6:40dock a week after the flyer went out.
6:42Reed, we'll need your boat off the water
6:44for lake day. Why? That old dock is in
6:47the drone shot. She gestured at it like
6:49it was a stain. Could you cover it with
6:51something? Cover my grandfather's dock.
6:54Just for the day. A nice white tarp. She
6:56smiled. It's for the whole community.
6:59No. Then the association will have it
7:01covered for you. Kendall, if anyone from
7:03your association touches that dock, I'll
7:05call the sheriff. She shrugged. Call
7:08whoever you like. It's our lake. My lake
7:10is not turquoise. It's spring water over
7:12marl and gravel. And in July, it's
7:15green. Clear but green. Warm water plus
7:19sunlight plus a little runoff from 78
7:22fertilized lawns makes a thin haze of
7:24algae along the shallows every summer.
7:27It's normal. It's healthy. The fish like
7:29the shade. The Kendall did not like the
7:31green. My log for July 9th says it in
7:34plain numbers. Dissolved oxygen 7.9, pH
7:388.1, clarity 9 ft, light algae south
7:41shallows normal. That afternoon, Kendall
7:44walked down to my dock with a man named
7:46Rusty Kilgore, who did handyman work for
7:49the HOA. Reed, the lake looks terrible,
7:51she said. The lake looks like a lake in
7:53July. It looks like a swamp. We have a
7:56TV crew coming in 11 days. It'll look
7:58the same in 11 days. Not if we treat it,
8:01Kendall said. I set my coffee down.
8:03Treat it with what? Rusty says, "Copper
8:05sulfate. It's what golf courses use. It
8:08clears it right up." Rusty was looking
8:10at his boots. He didn't say anything.
8:12"Kendall, listen to me." I said, "You
8:14can't put copper sulfate in this lake.
8:17People do it all the time. Licensed
8:19people with a state permit at a measured
8:21dose on their own water. It's our water.
8:24It's not. And it doesn't stay here. This
8:26lake drains into Silver Run Creek." So,
8:29so the state trout hatchery takes its
8:31water straight out of that creek 3 m
8:33down. I pointed south. Copper kills
8:37trout at doses that won't bother
8:38anything else. You're being dramatic.
8:41I'm being a biology teacher. Too much
8:43copper and you don't just kill the
8:44algae. I let her hear it. You kill the
8:47fish. That's ridiculous. Then the dead
8:49algae rots and eats the oxygen, I said.
8:51And whatever's left suffocates. She
8:54crossed her arms. So what am I supposed
8:56to do? Let it look like this on
8:57television. Yes, I said. Exactly that.
9:00Let it look like a lake. Rusty finally
9:02looked up. Missur, he's right about the
9:05permit thing. He said, I looked it up.
9:07You need a license. You're not being
9:09paid to look things up, Rusty. Then find
9:11somebody else, he said, and walked back
9:13up the ramp. Kendall looked at me for a
9:16long moment. You'd love for this
9:17festival to fail, wouldn't you? I'd love
9:19for you to not kill 200,000 trout, I
9:22said. She went back up the ramp, too. I
9:25wrote the conversation down in my log
9:27book that night. Date, time, and what
9:29was said. Teachers write things down.
9:32Rusty found me at the hardware store in
9:33town two days later. He was buying a
9:35padlock. Mr. Hollister about the lake.
9:38You did the right thing, Rusty. I know.
9:40He turned the padlock over in his hands.
9:43She called me again last night. Offered
9:44me 500 cash to do it at night. What did
9:47you say? I said no again. He looked at
9:50me. She's not going to let it go. Why
9:52not? She's got a TV crew coming. She's
9:55told everybody the lake's going to look
9:56like the Caribbean. There's nothing I
9:58can do about that. Just keep an eye on
10:00your water, Rusty said. That's all I'm
10:02saying. On July 13th, I left for a
10:05two-day teacher training in Traverse
10:07City. I told Dana Pedabone at the
10:09mailboxes that morning because she'd
10:11asked if I'd be around for lake day. I
10:13said I'd be gone until Wednesday night.
10:15Kendall was getting her mail at the next
10:17box over. She didn't look up. I didn't
10:20think anything of it at the time. My log
10:22for the morning of July 16th says
10:24something I'd never written before.
10:26Water milky blue at North End. Clarity 2
10:29ft. Dead bluegill along East Bank about
10:3120. Strong smell. Something's wrong. I
10:34got home from Traverse City at 10:00 the
10:36night before. I didn't see anything in
10:38the dark. In the morning, I walked out
10:41to the dock with my coffee the way I
10:43always do, and the first thing I noticed
10:46was the silence. No frogs in the
10:48shallows, no kingisher on the snag. The
10:52lake was never silent in July. By 7 that
10:54morning, I was standing at the north end
10:56of my lake with my sampling kit, and the
10:59water looked like somebody had stirred
11:00blue paint into it. There was a pale
11:03blue film along the shore. The algae in
11:05the shallows had turned gray and was
11:07sinking, and the fish were coming up.
11:10Not all at once, one at a time. A
11:13bluegill would float up to the surface,
11:15gulp at the air, roll on its side, and
11:18drift. Then another, then 10. I ran a
11:21dissolved oxygen test. The meter read
11:233.1. 7 days earlier, it had been 7.9.
11:27Below 4, fish start dying. Below 2,
11:31nothing lives. I tested the pH. I dipped
11:34a copper test strip I'd had in my kit
11:35for years and never used. It went so
11:38dark I thought it was defective. I tried
11:40a second strip. Same. I stood on my
11:43grandfather's dock and looked at the
11:45milky blue water and I understood
11:47exactly what had happened. Somebody had
11:49dumped copper sulfate in my lake while I
11:51was gone. a lot of it. I called the DNR
11:54hotline first. Michigan DNR report all
11:56poaching. This is Reed Hollister,
11:58volunteer water monitor. I'm reporting a
12:01chemical discharge, and an active fish
12:03kill location. I gave them my monitoring
12:06number, my readings, and one more
12:08sentence. This lake drains into Silver
12:10Run Creek above the hatchery intake. The
12:13woman on the phone went quiet for a
12:14second. Then she said, "Hold on." Then I
12:17called the hatchery directly. I'd been
12:19there twice for fingerlings. The first
12:21time Gene had walked me along the
12:23raceways, long concrete channels full of
12:26thousands of tiny trout moving together
12:28like smoke. "These go to the Osabi, the
12:31Pear Marquette, the Manasty," he'd said.
12:33"Half the brook trout in northern
12:35Michigan started right here. All from
12:37that little creek. All from your creek,"
12:39he'd said. "Clean water in the county.
12:42That's why they built the hatchery here
12:43in 1935," Gene Oiler answered. He was
12:47the hatchery manager. We'd met twice
12:49when I picked up bluegill fingerlings
12:51from my lake. Jean, it's Reed Hollister
12:54from the lake above you. Close your
12:55intake from Silver Run right now. Close
12:58it? Why? Somebody dumped copper in my
13:00lake. It's coming down the creek. Reed,
13:03if I close that intake, I lose my flow.
13:05The raceways go warm. If you don't close
13:07it, I said, you lose your fish. There
13:10was a long pause. How much copper? My
13:12strips went black. He hung up. He was
13:15running. He closed the intake at 7:40.
13:17It was too late for about half of them.
13:19By noon, the hatchery had lost 112,000
13:23brook and brown trout fingerlings. The
13:25next generation of fish for 40 rivers.
13:28They were scooped out of the raceways in
13:30white buckets and dumped into plastic
13:32totes. And the smell that came off those
13:34totes, Gene told me later, was the worst
13:36thing he'd smelled in 27 years of
13:38raising fish. I drove down to the
13:40hatchery that afternoon.
13:43I don't know why. I think I needed to
13:45see it. Jean met me at the gate. He'd
13:47been in the raceways and chest waiters
13:49since 8. His eyes were red. "Walk with
13:51me," he said. The first four raceways
13:54were empty. Not empty of water, empty of
13:57motion. The trout were lying on the
14:00bottom in layers, pale gills open,
14:02thousands and thousands of them, like
14:04somebody had poured silver sand into the
14:06concrete. Two workers were scooping them
14:09out with long-handled nets into white
14:11totes. Nobody was talking. "The last
14:13three raceways made it," Jean said. We
14:16had them on the well, not the creek. How
14:18many? 112,000 give or take. He looked at
14:21the totes. Four years of broodstock went
14:24into these reed. 40 rivers were getting
14:26these fish next spring. I'm sorry, Jean.
14:29You called, he said. Without that call,
14:31it's all of them. He turned to me. Who
14:33did this? I think I know, I said. I
14:36can't prove it yet. Then prove it, Jean
14:39said. For them. He nodded at the totes.
14:42By the next morning, my leg had turned.
14:44That's the word for it. When the algae
14:46dies all at once and sinks, the bacteria
14:48that eat it use up every bit of oxygen
14:50in the water. My log for July 17th says
14:54do 0.8, clarity 1 ft, fishkill total.
14:59I didn't write anything else. I
15:01couldn't. Everything came up. Every
15:04bluegill I'd stocked, every base. The
15:08old largemouth that had lived under the
15:10dock since my grandfather was alive. 8
15:12lb at least. floating on his side
15:14against the pilings with his mouth open.
15:16That's the morning Kendall called the
15:18conservation officers on me. Their names
15:21were Terresa Klene and Mike Duval. They
15:24had driven up from the district office
15:25after two calls came in within an hour.
15:28My call about a chemical dump and
15:30Kendall's call reporting that a neighbor
15:32was illegally poisoning and stalking the
15:35community lake. Arrest him, Kendall
15:37said. He poisoned our lake. Officer
15:39Klene had just smelled the water. She
15:42was looking at the blue film on the
15:43pilings. She asked for my log book. I
15:46got it from the truck. It's a green
15:48water stained field book, the kind you
15:50buy at a surveyor supply store. 8 years
15:52of entries in pencil. Officer Klein
15:54opened it and flipped to the back. She
15:56read the July 9th entry, then July 16th,
15:59then July 17th. Then she flipped back a
16:02few pages further to the entry I'd
16:05written the night of July 9th after
16:07Kendall and Rusty had come down to my
16:09dock. Kore and R. Kilgore at doc 4:15
16:12p.m. KO wants to treat lake with copper
16:16sulfate before lake day 720ths for TV. I
16:20told her permit required. Drains to
16:22Silver Run. Hatchery at risk. RK said a
16:26license was needed and left. KO said,
16:28"We'll proceed however we need to."
16:31Officer Klene read it twice. Then she
16:33looked up at Kendall on the ramp. Ma'am,
16:36did you have this conversation with Mr.
16:37Hollister on July 9th? Kendall's face
16:40didn't move. I have no idea what he's
16:42written in his little book. That's not
16:44what I asked. We discussed the lakes's
16:46appearance. Everyone has. Did you
16:48discuss copper sulfate? I discussed
16:50options. Ma'am, did anyone from your
16:52association apply copper sulfate to this
16:54lake? Absolutely not, Kendall said. If
16:57anyone put something in this lake, look
16:59at him. He's the one with a chemistry
17:01kit. Officer Klein closed my log book
17:03and handed it back to me. Mr. Hollister,
17:06I'm going to need a copy of this, of
17:08course. and I'm going to need you to
17:09stay off the water. Am I being arrested?
17:12No, sir. She looked at the lake.
17:14Nobody's being arrested yet. What
17:16happened next, I'm not proud of. For
17:18about 4 days, Kendall or one. She got to
17:21the neighborhood first. That night, a
17:24post went up on the Clearwater Point
17:25Facebook page from the HOA account over
17:28a photo of dead fish piled against my
17:30dock. A neighboring property owner with
17:32a long history of disputes with the
17:34association has been conducting
17:36unauthorized chemical and fish stocking
17:38activities in our community lake for
17:40years. Last week, the lake suffered a
17:42catastrophic fish kill. The DNR is
17:46investigating. We are cooperating fully.
17:48It had 200 shares by midnight. Somebody
17:52posted my school's name. Somebody else
17:55posted my home address. On Monday, the
17:58principal called me into his office. He
18:00was apologetic. The district was aware
18:03of the social media situation. Parents
18:05had called. He asked me to take a few
18:08days of personal leave until the DNR
18:10finished its review. I have taught
18:12biology at Oxbow Valley High School for
18:1414 years. I have never missed a day of
18:16class for anything but a funeral. My son
18:19Max is 12. He lives with me half the
18:22week. He'd caught his first bass off
18:24that dock when he was five, the same
18:26spot where his great-grandfather taught
18:27me to tie a clinch knot. For two summers
18:30after that, he'd refused to fish
18:32anywhere else. That Tuesday, he came
18:35home from swim practice and sat down at
18:37the kitchen table with his towel still
18:39around his neck. Dad Carter said you
18:42killed all the fish on purpose. Did he?
18:44He said his mom said you poisoned the
18:46lake so the festival would get
18:47cancelled. What did you say? I said
18:49you'd never do that. he picked at the
18:51edge of the towel. You wouldn't, right?
18:54That one hurt more than the principal.
18:56Max, come here. I took him down to the
18:58dock. The fish were gone by then. The
19:01DNR had brought a crew and waiters with
19:03nets and hauled them out in bins, but
19:05the water was still wrong, milky, and
19:08gray, and there was still a blue crust
19:10dried on the rocks at the north end. I
19:13handed him the copper test strip. He
19:15dipped it. It came out almost black.
19:17That's copper, I said. A lot of it.
19:19Somebody put it in on purpose. I was in
19:21Traverse City. He looked at the strip
19:23for a long time. Who? I think I know.
19:27But knowing isn't enough. I have to
19:28prove it. How? Same way I teach you
19:31everything, I said. Evidence. Kendall
19:34found me at my mailbox that Wednesday.
19:36She parked her white SUV at the end of
19:38my driveway with the engine running and
19:40rolled the window down. You should know
19:42the association is considering legal
19:44action for the damage to the lake. The
19:46damage you caused? the damage caused by
19:48your unlicensed activities. She said it
19:51like she'd practiced it. 8 years of
19:53dumping fish and chemicals into water
19:55that isn't yours. I dumped bluegill
19:57fingerlings from the state hatchery with
19:59a permit. That's your story. It's in the
20:02state's database, Kendall, with my name
20:03on it. She looked at me for a long
20:05moment through her sunglasses. Nobody
20:08reads databases, read, she said. People
20:10read Facebook. She rolled the window up
20:12and drove away. The festival was
20:14cancelled. You can't hold lake day on a
20:17lake that smells like a slaughter house.
20:19The TV station ran a story instead. Fish
20:22kill at Private Lake near State
20:23Hatchery. They interviewed Kendall on
20:26camera standing in front of the water.
20:28"We're devastated," she said. "We've
20:30asked the DNR to look very closely at a
20:32neighbor." She glanced toward my dock.
20:35One who's been operating on this lake
20:36without any oversight. "They didn't
20:38interview me. They called." I didn't
20:40know what I was allowed to say yet, so I
20:42said nothing. The DNR sent a team on
20:45Thursday. Not the conservation officers
20:47this time, the environmental
20:49investigators, a chemist from the lab in
20:51Lancing, and at the request of Officer
20:54Klene, the Michigan State Police dive
20:56team. I didn't know why they'd sent
20:58divers until I saw where they started.
21:00Not at my dock, at the North End, where
21:03the spring comes up, where my logs said
21:05the water had been the bluest. The dive
21:07team sergeant was a man named Rick
21:09Tamez. He stood on the north bank in a
21:11black dry suit and looked at the milky
21:13water. Copper sulfate comes as blue
21:15crystals, he told me, in 50 lb bags. And
21:19and if somebody dumped a lot at once in
21:21the dark, they might not have taken the
21:23bags with them. Why not? Because
21:25dragging empty bags home is how you get
21:27caught, he said. People think the water
21:30keeps secrets, does it? He pulled his
21:32mask down. Not from us. About 20
21:35residents of Clearwater Point had come
21:37down to the shoreline path to watch. I
21:40recognized Dana Pedabone, the
21:42association treasurer, a retired couple
21:44who'd fished off the far bank for years.
21:47A woman who'd shared Kendall's post with
21:49a comment that said he should be in
21:52jail. "What are they looking for?" one
21:54of them asked me. "Whatever's on the
21:56bottom," I said. Word gets around when
21:58there's a dive team on a lake. Kendall
22:00came too. She stood a little apart with
22:03her arms crossed and her sunglasses on.
22:05While the divers suited up, I stood next
22:07to Sergeant Tamez on the bank. You do a
22:10lot of these car in a lake, drowning,
22:12stolen boat. He checked a divers's
22:14regulator. First time I've looked for
22:16fertilizer bags. Copper sulfate. Same
22:19idea. He looked over at Kendall. The one
22:21who calls it in usually knows where to
22:23look. He snapped the divers's buckle
22:25shut or doesn't want you to. The first
22:27diver went down at 10:15. The water was
22:30so cloudy they had to work by feel in a
22:32line holding a rope sweeping the bottom
22:35with their hands. At 10:40, a diver
22:38surfaced about 30 ft off the north bank
22:40and held up his hand. He was holding
22:42something blue and white and sagging
22:44with water. They brought it to shore. It
22:46was a heavy paper and plastic bag torn
22:49open along the top, still crusted inside
22:51with blue crystals. The printing was
22:53faded, but you could read it. Copper
22:56sulfate pentahhydrate 50 lb. Below that,
22:59a warning box harmful to fish and
23:01aquatic organisms. And stuck to the side
23:04of the bag, a white price label from the
23:06farm supply store in Harland. The diver
23:08went back down. He came up again and
23:11again. By noon, there were seven bags on
23:13the bank. 750 lb bags. 350 lb of copper
23:18sulfate dumped into a 3acre lake. The
23:21chemist from Lancing looked at them
23:23lined up on the grass and said one thing
23:25very quietly. That's not a treatment.
23:28That's a massacre. Somebody on the
23:30shoreline path said, "Oh my god." The
23:32retired man on the path turned to his
23:34wife. "Harand? That's the farm store in
23:37Harlem." "Anybody could shop there,"
23:39someone said. "£350 of it," the chemist
23:42said. "Not anybody." Donna Pedabone was
23:45staring at the price label on the
23:46nearest bag. Then she turned and looked
23:48at Kendall. "Kendall," she said. "The
23:51association has an account at that
23:52store." Kendall didn't say anything, but
23:55she wasn't standing with her arms
23:57crossed anymore. The farm store in
23:59Harland had a security camera over its
24:01register, and the price labels on the
24:03bags had a date code. It took Officer
24:05Klein 2 days. She came to my house on a
24:08Saturday evening, and sat at my kitchen
24:10table and laid out three photos. They
24:13were stills from the store's security
24:15camera dated July 14th, the day after
24:18I'd left for Traverse City. The first
24:20photo showed a woman in a white visor at
24:22the register. The second showed seven
24:25blue and white bags on a flatbed cart.
24:27The third showed the card reader. The
24:30store keeps copies of card receipts.
24:32Officer Klein said that purchase was
24:34made on a debit card issued to the
24:36Clearwater Point Homeowners Association.
24:38She slid one more paper across the
24:40table, the HOA's own bank statement,
24:43which the association's treasurer had
24:45provided that morning. Farm Supply Haron
24:48July 14th $1,140.
24:51Who's in the visor? I asked. I already
24:54knew. We'd like you to confirm something
24:56first, she opened another folder. Who
24:58has access to the north end of your lake
25:00at night? Anybody from Clearwater Point?
25:02The walking path runs along the north
25:04bank. Is there a camera anywhere near
25:06that path? I thought about it, then I
25:09remembered. The HOA put a trail camera
25:11on the north boat house last year to
25:13catch me fishing. Officer Klene almost
25:15smiled. "It was the first time I'd seen
25:18her do it. We got a warrant for the SD
25:20card," she said. "It's motion activated.
25:22It records to a card in the camera box.
25:25What's on it?" She put her phone on my
25:27kitchen table and pressed play. The
25:29footage was grainy, infrared, black and
25:32white. Timestamp July 15th, 11:42. A
25:36figure walked into frame on the north
25:38path, dragging a garden cart behind it.
25:41The cart was stacked with bags. The
25:43figure stopped at the edge of the water
25:45and looked around once over her
25:47shoulder. It was Kendallor. She slit the
25:50first bag open with something in her
25:52hand and poured it into the lake. The
25:54crystals showed up bright white on
25:55infrared like snow. Then the next bag,
25:58then the next. She didn't carry any of
26:01them back. She threw them in the water
26:02after they were empty. It took her 19
26:05minutes. The last thing the camera
26:07recorded was her walking away with the
26:09empty cart, wiping her hands on her
26:11pants. She put the camera up to catch
26:13you. Officer Klein said it caught her. I
26:16sat at my kitchen table and watched it
26:18twice. Then I turned the phone face
26:20down. She walked right past the camera.
26:22I said her own camera. People forget the
26:25cameras they put up for other people.
26:27Officer Klein said. What happens now?
26:30Now I take this to the prosecutor. She
26:32picked up her phone. And you go back to
26:34teaching. Why? I said, why would she do
26:37it herself? She could have hired
26:38someone. She tried. Officer Klein closed
26:41the folder. Rusty Kilgore gave us a
26:44statement this morning. What did he say?
26:46She asked him to do it the same day you
26:48warned her. He refused. He quit. Then
26:51she did it alone. 4 days before a TV
26:53crew was supposed to film her lake. She
26:55stood up. Mr. Hollister, I'm sorry about
26:58your fish and about your job. We'll be
27:00talking to your principal. At the door,
27:02she stopped. Your log book, she said.
27:04The July 9th entry. You wrote down that
27:07you warned her. I write everything down.
27:09Keep doing it, she said. It's the reason
27:11she's in trouble and you're not. Before
27:13any of that, Kendall came to my door. It
27:16was the night after the divers. She
27:18stood on my porch without her
27:20sunglasses. Reed, can we talk like
27:22adults? We're talking. Everybody's going
27:25to find out that I bought the treatment.
27:27Yes, that's fine. It was for the lake,
27:29for the community. Seven bags, Kendall.
27:32I didn't know how much to use. Her voice
27:34was tight. Here's what I'm asking. Tell
27:36them it was an accident. an accident
27:38that we discussed it together that you
27:40advised me. You want me to say I told
27:42you to do it? I want you to say it was a
27:44misunderstanding between neighbors. She
27:47held out an envelope. The association
27:49will drop every fine and the lake fee
27:51question goes away forever. I looked at
27:54the envelope. I didn't take it. Gene
27:56Oiler lost 112,000 trout. I said 40
28:00rivers aren't getting fish next spring.
28:02That's not a misunderstanding. It's
28:04fish. Reed. It's the state's fish. and
28:06my grandfather's lake. I opened the door
28:09wider so she could see my kitchen table.
28:11The green log book was sitting on it.
28:14And I wrote down what you said on July
28:169th, word for word. She looked at the
28:18log book for a long time. Then she put
28:21the envelope back in her purse and
28:22walked down my steps. Kendall or was
28:25charged the following week. The Oxbow
28:27County prosecutor filed under Michigan's
28:29pesticide and environmental laws,
28:31applying a restricted chemical without a
28:33license, discharging a pollutant into
28:35the waters of the state, destruction of
28:38state property for the hatchery fish.
28:40She was also charged with making a false
28:42report to a conservation officer for me.
28:45The news station that had interviewed
28:46her on camera ran a second story. They
28:49used the trail camera footage. 19
28:51minutes of a woman in the dark pouring
28:53white crystals into a lake cut down to
28:5630 seconds. It ran on the 6:00 news
28:59across northern Michigan. Dana Pedabone
29:01called me the night the charges were
29:03filed. Reed, I owe you an apology. I
29:06signed off on that fine against you in
29:07April. You didn't know. I didn't read
29:10your deed. None of us did. She told us
29:12not to. Dana sighed. I read it tonight.
29:15Took me three minutes. What happens now?
29:18Now the board meets, she said without
29:20her. I was not at the Clearwater Point
29:23board meeting where they voted to remove
29:24her. I heard about it from Dana
29:26Pedabone, the treasurer, who had given
29:29officer Klene the bank statement. She
29:32told me the vote took 4 minutes.
29:35Kendall didn't attend. Her husband came,
29:38sat in the back, and left before they
29:40read the result. The cost came in over
29:42the next few months. I'll give you the
29:44numbers because I teach science and the
29:47numbers matter. The state build for the
29:49hatchery. 112,000 trout fingerlings at
29:52state replacement cost plus the
29:54emergency response plus the lost
29:56production season plus the cleanup of
29:59Silver Run Creek. Just over 1.4 million.
30:04The prosecutor sought it as restitution
30:06from Kendall. The DNR sought it civily
30:08from the association because she'd
30:10bought the chemical with the
30:11association's card. The association's
30:13insurance excluded pollution. Most
30:15policies do. The DNR required the
30:18association to pay for the restoration
30:19of my lake. That's a thing people don't
30:22think about. You can't just refill a
30:24lake with fish.
30:26You have to wait until the copper
30:27settles out of the water column. You
30:29have to dredge the worst of the sediment
30:31at the north end. You have to test for a
30:33full season. Then you restock. The
30:36estimate was $280,000.
30:38The board sent every household in
30:40Clearwater Point a letter explaining
30:42where the money would come from. Dana
30:45told me the first line of the letter was
30:47an apology to me. The second paragraph
30:49refunded the lake amenity fee. Four
30:52years of it, $150 a year from every
30:55household for access to a lake the
30:57association never owned. The auditor
31:00found that a little over $31,000 of it
31:03had gone to lake day event planning and
31:06community marketing, which was mostly
31:08Kendall's drone photographer and her
31:10Instagram ads. My fines were rescended.
31:13The lean threat was withdrawn in writing
31:15and the association recorded a document
31:17at the county at my request stating that
31:20the lake was private property and always
31:22had been. At the sentencing, the
31:24prosecutor asked Gene Oiler to speak. He
31:27stood at the podium in a sport coat that
31:29didn't fit him and held a single sheet
31:31of paper he never looked at. "Your
31:33honor, I've raised trout for 27 years,"
31:36he said. "I've lost fish to floods, to
31:38heat, to a power outage once in 1998."
31:42He turned and looked at Kendall at the
31:43defense table. I never lost them to
31:45somebody who wanted a nicer picture. He
31:48sat down. The courtroom was very quiet.
31:50She had pleaded guilty in January. She
31:53was sentenced to probation, a large
31:55fine, full restitution to the state, and
31:57a court order barring her from applying
31:59any pesticide or chemical to any water
32:02in Michigan. The judge said something at
32:05the sentencing that Dana told me word
32:07for word. He said, "Miss or you poisoned
32:10a lake to make it look clean." Max
32:12watched the 6:00 news with me that
32:14night. When they showed the footage of
32:16Kendall pouring the bags in the dark, he
32:19didn't say anything. He just leaned
32:21against my shoulder. "Carter's mom
32:23shared the post about you," he said
32:24finally. "I know. Is Carter's mom going
32:27to say sorry?" "I don't know, bud." "She
32:29should," Max said. "You made me say
32:32sorry to Carter when I broke his bike.
32:33My principal called me back to school
32:35the Monday after the trail camera
32:37footage aired. He apologized in person
32:40in front of my first period class, which
32:42I did not ask him to do and which I will
32:44never forget. My students had seen the
32:46news. One of them raised his hand. Mr.
32:49Hollister, is it true you figured it out
32:51with your field book? Part of it. Can we
32:53see it? So I passed it around the room.
32:56Eight years of pencil entries,
32:58temperatures and oxygen levels and
32:59clarity readings, and one line in July
33:02that says K or and R Kilgore at doc.
33:054:15 p.m. A girl in the back row read it
33:08out loud to the class. Wait, a boy said,
33:10"You wrote that down the same day?" 4:15
33:13p.m. July 9th, same day. Why? Because my
33:16grandfather told me to write down what
33:18good looks like. I said, "Turns out you
33:21should write down what bad looks like,
33:22too. This is why I make you write
33:24everything down, I said. Gene Oiler
33:27called in December. The hatchery had
33:29gotten emergency funding from the state
33:31to rebuild its lost stock. He'd also
33:33gotten something else. Reed, the DNR is
33:36putting in a monitoring station on
33:37Silver Run Creek. What kind? Automatic.
33:40Checks the water every 15 minutes. Texts
33:42me if something's wrong. That's good,
33:44Jean. They're putting a second one on
33:46your outlet above the creek. He paused.
33:49With your permission. It's your land.
33:52You have it. They asked me what to name
33:53it on the state map, Jean said. I told
33:56them Hollister Station after your
33:58grandfather. I didn't say anything for a
34:00while. That okay? That's more than okay,
34:02I said. The lake came back slowly. The
34:05copper settled into the sediment by
34:07October. The DNR dredged the north end
34:10in November when the water was cold.
34:12They tested all winter through the ice.
34:15I went out with them every time and took
34:17my own readings and wrote them down. My
34:19log for March 28th says due 9.8, pH 7.9,
34:24clarity 11 ft, copper not detectable,
34:28spring flowing strong at North End. Gene
34:30Oiler called me in April. Reed, the DNR
34:33says your lake is cleared for
34:35restocking. I heard we had a good winter
34:37at the hatchery. New raceways, new
34:40intake filter. He paused. We'd like to
34:43send the first bluegill up to you from
34:45our own ponds. Jean, you don't owe me
34:47anything. We're not doing it because we
34:49owe you, he said. We're doing it because
34:51you called. The hatchery truck came down
34:54my gravel road on a Saturday morning in
34:56May. Jean drove it himself. Officer
34:59Klene came in her own car off duty. Dana
35:03Pedabone walked down from Clearwater
35:05Point with two of her grandkids, and
35:07about 30 other neighbors came down the
35:09shoreline path, the same path where
35:11they'd stood and watched the divers pull
35:13bags out of the water. The week before,
35:16Carter's mother had knocked on my door.
35:18She held a plate of cookies she clearly
35:19hadn't baked and couldn't quite look at
35:21me. I shared that post, she said, with
35:24your address. I'm sorry. Thank you for
35:26saying it. Max said you'd want me to say
35:28it to your face. She almost laughed.
35:30He's very firm. He gets that from his
35:33great-grandfather, I said. Carter came,
35:35too. The boy who told Max I'd killed the
35:37fish on purpose. He stood next to Max at
35:40the end of the dock and didn't say
35:42anything. and Max didn't either. And
35:44after a while, they were just two
35:4612-year-olds looking at the water. Gan
35:48backed the truck down to the ramp. He
35:50climbed out and looked at the water for
35:52a long time. "Clear to the bottom," he
35:54said. "11 ft at the dock." "That's
35:57better than my raceways." He opened the
35:59tank on the back of the truck and filled
36:01a 5gallon bucket with cold water and
36:03silver fingerlings. "Your lake," he
36:05said. "Your fish," I handed the bucket
36:08to Max. He carried it out to the end of
36:10his great-grandfather's dock with both
36:12hands, walking slowly so it wouldn't
36:14slosh.
36:16He knelt down on the boards. Then he
36:18tipped it carefully the way I'd shown
36:21him and poured.

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