Two days after the flood, he attended an informal county meeting and claimed the young woman's decision to flood her cranberry beds had contributed to the damage downstream.
He said she'd opened an old gate without understanding its consequences.
He described the action as reckless.
And he insisted the upper embankment's failure was an unforeseeable consequence of extraordinary rainfall.
Several residents listened.
Others looked uncomfortable.
The volunteer fire officer who had been present during the emergency raised his hand.
He explained that the lower storage operation had been coordinated with emergency personnel and was part of a documented response to rising water.
The larger grower frowned.
Then argued that the young woman still had no business operating outdated infrastructure.
The retired hydrologist stood.
She was seventy-one and walked with a slight stiffness in one knee, but her voice remained clear.
"The old gate wasn't the structure that failed."
The room became quiet.
She continued.
"The failure occurred upstream, where the historical relief corridor had been altered."
The large grower's face reddened.
He accused her of clinging to outdated engineering ideas.
She didn't react emotionally.
Instead, she opened a folder.
Inside were the old surveys and the publicly available permit drawings.
She placed them on the table.
Then asked the meeting chair whether the county would support a full independent review of the permitted construction and the failed embankment.
Several residents nodded.
The meeting chair hesitated.
Then said the matter was already being examined by the appropriate agencies.
The hydrologist nodded.
"Good."
She looked toward the larger farmer.
"Then the records will tell us what was built."
He didn't answer.
For the first time, his usual laughter was absent.
The young farmer watched the meeting from the back of the room.
She hadn't intended to speak.
Her clothes still smelled faintly of wet peat, and she had spent the previous night calculating how much equipment would need repairs.
But when the largest farmer accused her of causing the flood, something inside her hardened.
For months, he'd dismissed her concerns.
He'd offered to buy her farm for almost nothing.
And he'd laughed while she sacrificed part of her harvest to create temporary storage.
Now he wanted the public to believe she was responsible for the disaster.
She stood.
Several people turned.
The meeting chair acknowledged her.