comments and help would be appreciated. OK. here's what has happened. My neighbor (who goes in his garden twice a year) let a tree fall over the creek - on his land. Rather than deal with the problem them, he let the trunk decay and break off. Then he had a huge root ball from the tree balancing on the edge of the creek bank around 9 feet up. Needless to say it fell down and took part of their yard with it. (left a hole around 9' x 15' wide ). So about a month later then had a contractor come in and tip soil down the bank to try and fill the hole. then they planted ivy and placed rocks against the soil - starting at creek level. Now, normally the creek is around three feet wide and three inches deep at that point. The creek has many curves and where the tree fell was a big 'S' curves where it meets our property line. I have had dry stacked walls in my creek for about four years now to stop the erosion. When we get a heavy rain or hurricaine, then the creek raised by up to six or seven feet. Ah, you say, I'm starting to get the picture! We have had no problems, the water goes above our stone walls but doesn't cause us any problems ( my walls are between one and three feet deep in places). So, we have a couple of heavy storms, and low and behold, their rock gets washed away in places, where the force of the water hit it. Today the contractor was back out and he was saying that he would try one more time, and if it happened again, then he would just cut out the 'S' and make it a straight run to stop eroding their garden. Well, two things - maybe more - ,first if he did that it would cause problems for me. Secondly he is not allowed to change the shape of the creek bed (his comment was, well, we'll see about that) and thirdly if they had done what they should have done in the first place, non of this would have happened. So i have made a few phone calls and apparently you need a variance and the EPA's approval to do this (guy at fulton county said he had never heard of the EPA giving approveal). So bearing in mind these are the neighbors who we don't get on with - latest incident apart from this was rat poison left out and my dog got it - how would you approach this. I really don't want the creek straightened out - it would loose some of its charm, and also cause me problems. Sorry this is so long, but any comments, hints, phone numbers of people to call etc would be helpful. Thanks