French Drain

Winter in Damascus brings an abundance of underground water. We have underground springs all the way up the hill. Our neighbors all have ponds and the water is directed into one pond after another with long-standing, very old "water rights" to the flow. There's enough "old" neighbors to remember such things. So, one neighbor complained to another how the water flow was being restricted somewhere. To be "nice" our neighbor across the bush fence dug up his drain and put in a new one to release the water flow for the complaining neighbors. This re-directed some water into his new drain and some other water to randomly find it's own way down. It made it's own new drain down our front yard and tried to run into the street. The street automatically drains into yet another neighbor's driveway, which is a funnel into his basement. I'm not sure how many neighbors are involved at this point, but the hullaballoo finally resulted in a very deep rocky fancy HUGE French Drain being installed down the side of our yard. A "small" track ho was brought in for the job and our side yard has been re-arranged for the.... 3rd? time since we've moved in 6 years ago. The pipe overhanging the runoff ditch flows steadily. Every time I see it I feel good about telling water where to go... and I wonder about all the neighbors. What are the chances everyone's happy now? I don't think contentment is based on where the water runs.