Chapter 114: Dispute (1)
TL: Hanguk
Their faces were roughly sunburned, and with chunks of pump pipe and broken sections of PVC tubing in their hands, it was plain at a glance that these people hadn't come bearing any goodwill.
The man at the front of the group spat out the gum he'd been chewing and shouted.
"This thing got busted because of you people!"
His voice was cracked, like a dry wind.
"Ever since you drilled that new well, all I get out of my field is air, you understand?"
Once I grasped the situation, I frowned. I'd realized I was facing a more complicated problem than I'd expected.
Lodi, the region where Chloe's pear farm sat, lay atop the San Joaquin Subbasin in the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, and the whole area shared a single underground water source, an aquifer. Because of that, most of the farms here drew their irrigation from groundwater wells, which meant that, legally and physically alike, no one really knew who was pumping how much.
From the look of it, they'd come from several different farms, so it seemed unlikely they were lying, which only made the situation harder.
"Let's all calm down first..."
The moment I stepped forward, the man at the front exploded.
"Who the hell are you! You the owner here?"
"The owner is Chloe, right here. I'm her guardian and her partner."
"Partner...?"
At the word "partner", they all shrank back a little. "Partner" might just be a nicer way of saying "investor", and investors who got into farming at a young age were often wealthy, with plenty of legal muscle at their disposal, lawyers, tax accountants, and the like. They knew better than to fly off the handle at someone like that without thinking.
The fact that they'd come charging in throwing their weight around before saying a word, that was clearly because they all knew the owner was a young woman.
"Let's start from the beginning. Where exactly is this happening, and how much water used to come out compared to how much you're getting now? Oh, and Liam, could you record this conversation for me?"
"The thing is... the camera's back in the office at the warehouse."
"All right. Then shall we head over to our office and talk there?"
They glanced at one another, then nodded.
"Fine. Let's go."
In the end, the group set off on foot toward the office. Maybe she was unnerved, because Chloe trailed along clutching the back of my waist, then whispered.
"I think I need to start carrying a pistol or something."
"You even know how to shoot?"
"My dad taught me."
"Haaa..."
America... Not that I was completely against it, of course. In a stretch of land this vast, where calling the police could mean waiting over thirty minutes for them to arrive unless one was in a city, a person had no means of protecting themselves without a gun. I just worried that an accident might happen.
Once we reached the office and everyone had settled into whatever seat they wanted, chairs, the sofa, and so on, I looked at the six or seven people who'd come to the farm and spoke.
"Let me start by introducing myself again. I'm Brian Choi, the guardian and partner of Chloe, the owner here, and I run a winery up in Napa Valley."
At the mention of a Napa Valley winery, the farm owners exchanged glances, slightly taken aback. Part of it was the surprise of learning these weren't just clueless kids too young to know anything; the other part was that they knew a Napa Valley winery operated on a scale and revenue that ordinary farmers couldn't begin to match.
"I'd like to handle this rationally and fairly, so let's talk it through calmly."
With any other issue I wouldn't have bowed my head this far, but running a pear orchard and having someone come after me over water left me with no choice but to give ground. The fundamental problem was that Niitaka pears needed two to three times as much water as grapes. In summer especially, a single tree could demand a considerable amount, something like twenty to thirty liters a day.
That was why, when we first improved this old tomato field and turned it into a pear orchard, we'd drilled a new well... But even so, the water table had probably dropped only a foot or two below normal at most, so I couldn't quite understand why they'd come swarming in like this.
"The bottom's sinking out. Like I said before, my field's barely getting any water. And mine's not the only one, either."
"I understand. So you believe our pear orchard is the cause, is that it?"
"That's right. Back when this was a tomato farm, it wasn't like this."
"All right. Then here's what we'll do. We file a complaint with the Lodi Water District and request an investigation into 'well interference'."
For a moment, his face and those of the other farm owners creased into slight frowns as they turned to look at one another. It was a perfectly sensible proposal, but also the kind no one could make so readily without genuine confidence.
Everyone there knew that if the investigation found the pear orchard responsible for the drop in the groundwater level, we'd have to compensate every surrounding farm and could end up taking a massive loss.
"You're really saying we should do that?"
"Yes! If there's a problem, we confirm it quickly, and if something needs fixing, we fix it. But if it turns out the fault isn't ours, then wouldn't this clear up the whole misunderstanding all the faster?"
"Look, common sense says the water table dropped the moment this pear orchard showed up, and now the other farms can't pull any water. Either that, or you dug the new well too deep."
Groundwater varied from layer to layer, but it was common for many farms to share the shallowest aquifer, the shallow alluvial aquifer. In that situation, if a new well was dug too deep, more than 200 feet, the water pressure in the upper layer shifted, causing nearby shallow wells to run backward or draw in air, so that water failed to rise to the other farms.
Using too much water, or drilling a well wrong like that, could cause harm to other farms.
"The Lodi Water District will determine that as well."
The farm owners frowned slightly at my composed answer. They probably had no real conviction that the orchard was guzzling enormous amounts of water either. It had only been a year since we'd planted the saplings, so how much could it possibly be using?
The moment their water supply went bad, they'd stormed the pear orchard run by people they figured were young and naive, meaning to bully out a settlement, and now that it wasn't working, they were flustered.
"Fine, let's do it. Come on, let's go file the report right now."
And so the men who'd come barging in without rhyme or reason soon filed back out in a noisy cluster.
"Will it be okay?"
I gave a shrug to Chloe, whose face was full of worry.
"No matter how I look at it, this little wouldn't cause a problem with the water source. You remember how many times I specified exactly how deep to drill when we put in the well, right?"
"I know."
"So the odds that we caused any problem with the water source are next to none. The Lodi Water District will confirm it."
Having said that, I turned to look at Liam.
"That swelling at the graft union from earlier, that's from graft incompatibility. With Niitaka pears, there's a big physiological difference between the rootstock (the pear base tree) and the scion (the Niitaka variety), so if the soil pH or moisture conditions are off, an overgrowth forms at the graft union, swelling up like a collar around it."
"Ah..."
"To fix it, we need to correct the soil pH. Spread about 100 to 200 pounds of elemental sulfur per acre and follow it with deep plowing, or, instead of regular compost, mix in peat moss, acidic leaf mold, pine-needle compost, and the like. That should bring gradual improvement."
Liam's eyes went wide with surprise, and he said,
"The young owner told me plenty about you, but you really don't miss a thing when it comes to farming, do you?"
Beside us, Chloe cut in with a proud look on her face.
"See? I told you, didn't I?"
"You did. He really is some kind of farming genius. I've never once seen anyone hand out solutions on the spot like this."
Swallowing back my embarrassment, I added one more piece to the solution.
"If even that doesn't work, you can use foliar fertilization, spraying iron chelate (Fe-EDDHA, a high-efficiency iron fertilizer used to prevent and treat iron deficiency in plants) or zinc chelate (Zn-EDTA, a chelated compound fertilizer in which zinc ions are wrapped in organic molecules and stabilized to improve zinc uptake) two or three times."
"Understood. I'll give that a try."
I turned back to Chloe.
"I sent them off for now, but just in case, set up CCTV at the farm entrance and spots like that so people can't just barge in, and, just to be safe, you should keep an actual gun on hand too."
"Got it."
I didn't really mean she should brace for a gunfight, only that she should be ready for whatever might happen. Back in Korea, when some lunatic came around, calling the police or simply getting out of the way was usually enough to escape most dangerous situations, but in America the threat level of a lunatic ran far higher than in Korea, so there was nothing to be done about it.
"Anyway, head in for today. I'll come back when the Lodi Water District shows up."
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it... it's only natural."
At the promise that I'd come and be there for her on the important day, she broke into a bashful smile.
Four days later, the Conrad St. James Hotel, London.
Two days had passed since thousands of bottles of wine had been judged, and now only a single moment remained.
Best in Show.
The host's British accent rang out across the hall.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. After careful deliberation by our judges from every corner of the field, we will now announce the Best in Show of the 2007 Decanter World Wine Awards."
The lights dimmed slowly, and the wines of each region appeared on the screen in order. Europe, South America, Africa, New Zealand... and the final entry, the United States.
The single line they had waited so long and so anxiously to see appeared.
Echelon 2005 – Redwood Winery, California.
Applause burst out, and camera flashes went off one after another. Smiling, the host added,
"Redwood Winery has won the regional platinum. Congratulations!"
Christopher waved with a smile, and Thomas clapped his hands and shouted,
"We got it! Platinum at last!"
But Christopher gave a bitter smile. It was good news, no doubt about it... yet a single line at the bottom of the screen left a sting in his chest.
Sylphide 2005 – Gold Medal.
It was because Sylphide, the very wine he distributed, had stopped at gold. Honestly, even that was a tremendous achievement, but with Echelon taking the regional platinum of all things, an unflattering comparison had been forced into being.
Now that things had turned out this way, he regretted all the more having let Echelon slip through his fingers back when he'd appraised it.
"Stopped at gold, then."
"Such a shame."
"Still, with results like these, New York will rate Sylphide even higher than it does now."
It went without saying how the upper crust of New York worshipped prestige. The award from the San Francisco Chronicle, held in the United States, had already given the brand considerable clout, but the DWWA, held in England, was certain to lend it a different kind of authority altogether.
"Right. I imagine it will."
After the ceremony ended and he'd made his way out of the hall, Christopher placed a call to share the happy news with Brian once more.
"Hello?"
"Brian! Great news! You won't believe it, Echelon just took the regional platinum!"
Christopher had assumed Brian would be jumping for joy, but,
"Is that so? Thank you. And Sylphide?"
"Hm? Gold. It's a shame, but that's how it shook out."
"Gold is plenty to be satisfied with. Thank you for all your hard work. I'm a bit busy right now, would it be all right if I called you back later?"
"Oh, of course."
The call ended, and Christopher, deflated for no real reason, looked at Thomas with a rueful expression.
"I'm hungry, let's go find a restaurant. I need to soothe this aching gut."
"Haha, sounds good."
And just as Christopher was making his way to a taxi with that forlorn look on his face, I was facing a crowd of people back at Chloe's pear farm.
Sure enough, that same man from before was chewing gum and raising his voice again today.
"There's definitely a problem here, I'm telling you! This needs to be investigated properly!"
I gave a shrug toward the investigators who'd come out from the Lodi Water District, the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District, to be precise, gesturing that I would cooperate with their inspection.
"Understood. With your consent given, we'll begin the investigation."
The investigation to resolve the dispute had begun.
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