Drain Tile

[maplelakeduckslayer]

As a landowner, is it your right to tell a farmer he must plug up his drain tile? Any legal means they can use against you to not comply?

Been eating at me for a couple years now. The deer on our property have substantially declined in numbers, and the duck hunting on the pond has gone in the toilet. The famer has continued to "improve" existing drain tile on our land over the last 15 years or so. In that time, you used to be able to walk to our duck blind in regular boots...now the water is waist deep walking to the blind, and tge pond is 10' deep. And its not just close to the pond...the whole 50 acre cattail swamp used to be dry and now has varying degrees of standing water.

Deer love cattails and there's no doubt in my mind that the farmer has destroyed the prime bedding areas that made the property so great years ago. I know we've had some wet years...but I also remember wet years 15 years ago in the fall where he had a ton of crops underwater and that swamp was still dry.

I don't want to be a dick to the guy, but we bought this land as recreational land to hunt and he has destroyed that and it honestly pisses me off.

[Perch_44]

I'm confused. You own the land and lease the field(s) to a farmer?

You own land adjacent to a farmer installing tile?

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[maplelakeduckslayer]

Sorry, own it and lease it to the farmer. He's maintaining the tile on property we own.

[h2ofwlr]

Myself I'd have said 15 years ago - no more drain tile, a line in the sand type of thing.

But if you have not ever said anything and and he is doing it, well you have no one to blame but yourself then.

But if you have said no more and he continues to do it, well then that is breaking a verbal contract. Then well it really depends on your relationship with him on how hard you want to fight it (or not), or just say, enough and find a new tenant to rent it out to - this is especially so if you've repeatedly have told him not to tile it.

Also, do you own all the land around the slough? if not, others may be adding to the problem, and good luck for finding a remedy in that situation!

So from our(the readers) stance point, we don't know what all has or has not been said, details, etc,...

[lanyard]

MLDS- i get you don't want to spend coin on attorneys, but you'll get further dated then dealing with us here.

Assuming you have a contract is get that reviewed. The father may have claims to "improvements" which, regardless of your desire, have increased the market value of the property.

Your defense is likely built around free-will expenditures are subject to loss with termination of the contract, particularly since, I assume, he never paid a higher rent based on increased productivity of the land.

This might be relatively simple, but after 15 years of non-enforcement and saying, "hey, we don't like this anymore...." it may prove a bit stickier.

I'd have a strategy in hand prior to talking with your renter. Sounds like things have been on gentlemen's terms, anticipate after hurrying $50k of tile the renter may not feel so gentlemanly about a change of control/operation.

[Nershi]

Check your lease. If the lease doesn't address the tile determine if you are able to cancel it and create a new lease that does. I would guess the lease payments will need to renegotiated since productivity would go down without tile.

[Stute Slap]

Isn't tile supposed to drain wetlands?

Isn't everyone mad because tile drains wetlands?

I must be missing something

[maplelakeduckslayer]

Yeah hes using it to drain low spots in fields that would turn into wetlands/used to be wetlands if they weren't tiled. All that water has then run into an existing wetland flooding it

[maplelakeduckslayer]

The lease is basically a handshake lease. The paper part says we agree to rent to blank for year blank for blank amount.

My Dad has had his piece for 15 years and I bought the piece next to it 5 years ago. Yes it is true I gave him permission to "fix" the existing drain tile on the property approx. 3 years ago. I had no idea how negatively just fixing it would impact the 50 acre wetland everything runs into. The tile is only draining 2 low spots in his fields but the amount of water drained is mind boggling. And theres still flooded crops in the low spot with tile, he just brought that up last week.

Hes going to lose acreage either way, if it keeps flooding the wetland ruining bedding, I will plant a high ground 10 acre bedding area in the tillable.

I think he would rather lose a couple acres in low spots than lose productive high ground. But if theres a legal issue forcing him to abandon tile, theres nothing wrong with me converting part of the property to cover crops and bedding cover. That's my option to do with the land as I please

[Nershi]

With the absence of a formal lease I think you are in pretty good shape. You own the land and without a formal lease I would guess you own the tile that is in it as well. Biggest issue I see is the amount of money he has invested in installing or upgrading the drain tile that is on your land. If you require no use of drain tile he may sue you for the amount invested in it or the amount it would cost to remove it to be used elsewhere (if that is even possible). If he sues you I would guess you have the upper hand being the landowner. You may want to talk to an attorney and/or do some research to see if there is court precedent for similar situations.