This Old House Hour, French Open, Chores

The property to the south of me is owned by, what all my neighbors and I agree upon, a real dick -- what dad would call a bad neighbor, and what mom would call a pud. They've damned up the creek that runs north to south, which floods Tom's bean field to the east, and they don't see to the drainage tile, which floods Tom's west corn field. Right now the land isn't tillable, and is basically a wetland.

I don't want to buy the property; I need to buy the property, if for no other reason than it might make Tom's life just a little easier.

The problem: How would I set up a series of channels and ditches and levers and pulleys in order to create a pond that at the same time keeps the water out of Tom's fields?

Answer: I don't know. But something tells me every pond begins with a shovel. (Or explosives.)