Being a man of precious little property I may be scarcely qualified to contribute.
But it seems to me the land swap and the proposed dam are two entirely different issues, the land swap being far more pressing. Get that done while it can be done.
As for the dam, no one lives downstream now, but that too is subject to change at any time. You have to consider the probability that it WILL eventually fail.
Worse case scenario; that little lake has just enough water too attract nesting cattle egrets, which don’t feed around water but do nest around water. Before long you have 300 pairs of cattle egrets nesting in back of your home, their dropping stink up the place every summer and foul the lake, the resulting algae turning the water green, dying and using up all the oxygen and killing all the fish, the lake becoming a foul green morass speckled with dead fish. What’s left is ideal for breeding mosquitoes, the egrets carry West Nile.
Can’t touch the egrets they’re a protected species.
Meanwhile all the hundreds of baby egrets that get kicked/fall out of the nest wander pathetically around your back lawn, gathering against the house while slowly starving, their emaciated corpses forming fly-blown windrows.
I can show you three cattle egret colonies in San Antonio alone just like this.
The hog farm opens across the street and they complain about you.
