“Good.”
“Because my granddaughter thinks a duck is now a currency.”
Casey rolled her eyes.
Odell smiled.
Then became serious.
He explained wetland mitigation.
Developers sometimes disturb wetlands under approved projects.
When impacts cannot be avoided, they may be required to compensate by restoring or protecting wetland functions elsewhere.
One mechanism is a mitigation bank.
A landowner or sponsor restores suitable acreage, obtains approval through a formal process, places long-term protections on the site, meets performance requirements, and earns credits released in stages.
Those credits can be sold where there is regulatory demand.
Warren listened.
“What’s the catch?”
“Many.”
Odell said.
“Good answer.”
“First, your land isn't automatically a bank.”
“Second, the economics depend on service area, credit demand, restoration potential, acreage, agency approval, costs, and years of monitoring.”
“Third, you might have to place permanent restrictions on how the land is used.”
“No soybeans.”
“Not on enrolled acres.”
“Ever?”
“If permanently protected, yes.”
Warren looked toward the window.
“That is selling the land without selling it.”
“Not exactly.”
“It is giving up an agricultural use.”
“Yes.”
“Which my father spent money creating.”
“Yes.”
Warren looked irritated.
Odell did not push.
Then he said:
“But perhaps your father drained land that naturally wanted to be wet because that was how he could make it productive then.”
“Maybe the question isn't whether he was wrong.”
“Maybe the question is what use makes sense now.”
Warren’s face hardened.
“You say that because you don't owe my bank.”
Odell nodded.
“Fair.”
“So don't make a decision now.”
“Evaluate.”
“Numbers first.”
That language reached Warren.
Numbers first.
Odell requested permission to conduct a preliminary site assessment.
Warren agreed.
For the next several months, Casey became the farm’s unofficial wetland technician.
Fixed monitoring points.
Water-depth records.
Rainfall.
Vegetation.
Photographs.
Bird observations.
Soil samples taken under guidance.
She documented not just wet areas, but dry periods.
Odell insisted.
“Do not build a sales brochure.”
He told her.
“Build a record.”
“If it dries, write dry.”
“If plants die, photograph dead plants.”
“If water disappears, record it.”
“Bad data is still data.”
Casey liked him.
Warren did too, eventually.
June became July.
The outer edges receded.
A hot, dry spell settled over the county.
No meaningful rain for eighteen days.
Warren saw exposed mud.
Cracks.
Shrinking pools.
One evening he found Casey at the kitchen table entering measurements.
“Told you.”
“What?”
“It’s drying.”
“Yes.”
“So that’s that.”
“Maybe.”
He frowned.
“Maybe?”
“Point four still has seventeen inches.”
“That depression always holds water.”
“Not this long.”
“Old tile is blocked.”
“Could be.”
“You want this thing to be something.”
Casey looked at him.
“No.”
“I want to know what it is.”
Warren recognized his own stubbornness in her.
That irritated him.
The next morning, Casey walked to monitoring point four.
The shallow margins had shrunk.
Mud hardened.