There worth a thousand words you know! I'd love to see some of your work in this area. I'm bidding on a pond project soon. 150'x100'x12' Heavy brush and tree removal, year round creek runs through the middle of work area so I think I should expect high ground water. Also very limited access on every side just to make it more fun. And one more thing, what are your suggestions on how you go about digging the key way as far as what size, and what you do if your berm material is too wet for proper compaction practices? If you have photos, I'd really like to see them!! Thanks guys, J
Pictures that is, don't mind me.
May be many others here, but I know Dirtman2007 does quite a bit of pond work.
youtube Check out his youtube account called Letsdig18. He has alot of videos u can go through.
Hard to belive the state of calif. is on board with digging in a flowing stream or damming it up. A high water retention pond to the side might fly. I know here the Corp of engineers has to be consulted before you can even pass gas next to a flowing stream. Is this a NRSCS project ?. I know they are spending big bucks on off stream retention ponds. They do this with the anticipation that the water will surface downstream later in the year. So far they have just about dried up some down stream lakes. Hope I live long enough to see if it works.
Clayton, thanks for that info. I'm not sure if this (creek) is a creek or a drainage canal. But my guess is it's a creek. Is it the army corp of engineers that would need to be contacted to find out how to proceed?
I would check first with the NRSCS first.( Soil Conservation Service}. They should be located in your county FSA (Farm Service Admin) office. Every county should have one or maybe in the next county. I would not allert the Army Corp of Engineers until talking with SCS first. They can lead you in the right direction and may have some cost share money to help with the project of it meets their specs. Just ask questions and act rather unknowing. Old story of " I'm from the goverment and I'm here to help you". From past experience I don't think they will lead you wrong. If It's something they approve most likely the ACOE, will go along. Don't get crossways with either of them or you will wish you never started diging in a creek. Remember, " Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fightin over."
"Crayton" I miss spelled you name last time, thanks for that insight. Sounds as though you have done this kind of work a lot. Experience is knowledge! Pulling the "man" into this project will most likely kill it, but better it than me though! Thanks again, J
Yeah I think that's my favorite thread.
J, thanks for the kind words. Yes I have done a lot of that work over the years on my own land and for others. A lot of the stuff I did would land me in jail now but at the time it was with the full blessings of "the Man" but they have different ideas now. I'm speculating that maybe you have a new landowner and he has some neat ideas how he wants things to be and thats fine but now days water seems to belong to everybody and you are to let it move on it's way to the next guy. Don't be afraid of the SCS, they are really interested in helping you improve property if the end result is good for the land. My dad told me a long time ago, "Son someday you might own this along with some more but just because you own it doesn't mean you get to keep it, you just get to use it while you are here. Don't screw it up for the next guy". I started to clear about 50 acres along a stream in about 1950 and got on land I'm sure man never set foot on till I got there with a bulldozer. Tall cottonwoods 50= ft tall along with jungle so thick you couldn't walk thru it. Three streams meandering thru it and soil about 10 ft. deep. Developed it into a very nice hay meadow and pasture and it did provide for the family for the last 60 years. Also provided a lot of hard work for less than stellar returns. As I look back now if it was in it's natural state it would be worth much more and could have saved a lot of hard work. All this was done with the full blessing of the govt. Didn't realize it at the time but to the politicians cheap and plenty-full food was a sure way to get re-elected. Enough soapbox, hope you get lots of work and enjoy it. Remember, clean up the mess before you leave and make it look pretty even if you have to do it on your own dime. Makes a lot more people happy including yourself. Good luck!
We have built quite a few ponds this summer and although im shure we have a lot different soils than you do in Ca our sites sound a lot like yours 2 of them had water flowing at all times. Both of these sites had a high water table and we mixed clay off the hillsides off the end of the dams with the wet gumbo in the bottoms. The core trench {keyway} was 6' deep 12' wide at the bottom and 1.5 to 1 side slopes. On the sites with water floweing all the time we core the whole thing then fill the core up to natural ground level in the creek so flow is not restricted. Then we build off both ends and keep it open till the very end we put a plug up steem and hope for a dry forcast. On the 2 big ponds we had inspectors on site at all times and had to meet 95% compaction, there was enugh dry clay yo mix with gumbo we were able to meet compaction, with 55'' of rain this year there was no need for water trucks. Here are a few pictures
Looks like its big enough to do hydro-electric, just kidding. Nice job and setting.
Heres a pond we did in 2008. Man I wish I had taken better pictures. There were two big natural draws running parallel with a small hill in between them. The dam went from one side of the draw across the hill to the other side of the draw. We widened out both draws and cut the middle out. The dam was 1400' long, the deepest fill was 42'. This pond was engineered we had to core the whole distance. We dug out 6' deep by 15' wide across the whole thing then brought it back up to natural ground with clay. The clay core continued all the way to the top since 80% of the material was ripped up sandstone. Around here theres usually a couple feet of loamy topsoil, 2 to 3' of clay and wham sandstone forever, which means you have to stockpile the clay and ration it! In the pictures I'm standing close to the west end of the dam looking east toward the other end see the emergency spillway right in front of me. If you look really close you see 2 dozers ripping the middle section, scrapers are in the far draw, compactor on top of the dam, and believe I see the blade. Hmmm...theres a water truck lurking around somewhere.:beatsme I'll try to make it by there to take some pictures of it now and post em.
I thought of another question for you all. We don't have much clay at the site of this pond. The customer has suggested that we line the whole pond with clay which would be brought in. Sounds expensive to me. If I did do that, how thick of a layer should I put down? And, are all your projects drawn by an engineer? Because this project may not have any. Makes it very hard to bid accurately. Thanks so much for all the pic's, there really helpful. By the way, how do you post a photo???
You are correct clay liners are great if the material is on site, it just gets too expensive to have it trucked in for most clients. Every pond or runoff detention area that I have done that required clay liners are generally 2' thick. Most of our projects have engineered plans as they are generally in developments. Developers can afford to pay big bucks for big ponds because that means more lakefront lots to sell. Posting photos? I always scroll down and look for the manage attatchments tab and upload. Check into bentonite for sealing instead of a clay liner its much more cost efficient. Hope some of this helps.
They do make a fabric for pond sealing,,,woven mesh with betonite clay sandwiched in the middle....I did an install of the blanket many years ago. It was for a dairy farm liquid manure pit....the scs office should be able to direct you to a vendor to check current prices...good luck,
photo test Just wanted to see if this works.
Ok, I finally figured out how to post pictures. These are just some little projects I've done in the last few years. Much smaller scale than some of the other guys, but still fun.
This should help with bidding I have bid quite a few ponds in the last couple of years that were not engineered and did not have yardage numbers. We usually do the work by the hour but land owners like to have estimate. I downloaded a program from the NRCS website called WinPond It is the same program that the nrcs uses to design there smaller projects. With a little surveying, shots about every 25 feet on the centerline of the dam core depth side slope numbers and berm dimensions you can get a very accurate number for yardage. In our area $1.40-$2.15 a yard will usually catch most jobs. The other nice thing is if the customer has a set amount of money to work with you can adjust the water level or height of fill to the dollar figure they are looking for. As far as suitable pond material goes I drained and repaired a pond last summer that was leaking through a layer of sand and sand stone we had clay on site but still mixed some bentonite in with the clay when we lined it. I don’t know what kind of budget your customer is looking at but bentonite is not cheep and can require a lot of manual labor to put down. We used 3 pallets with 50 sacks per pallet then used the tiller on the skid loader to mix it in then ran the sheeps foot over it and layered more clay with it. The pond doesn’t leek any more but after paying someone else to build it then waiting 4 years for it to fill and finding that it leaked and paying us to drain it recore it and line it with bentonite and reseed it they had $15000 in a ½ acre pond. But it was next to there flower garden and they filed it with the garden hose after we left and they are happy.
what is that average depth you seek when digging a pond?
my dad is digging me one right now and the main tank is currently at 11ft (water level full) is that deep enough or do we need to keep going?
sorry not attempting to steal post. will create my own thread
you always have to consider evaporation rate when building a custom pond. the deeper the hole and less exposed surface the less it will evaporate. we like to atleast get a depth of 8' in our ponds.
yellow, is there any way i could send you some pics and you can tell me if we are headed in the right direction. i am still unable to create my own thread thanks
pond depth I just finished building one last week it was 22 feet deep. The owner wanted to stock it with walleye an thought it should be at least 18 feet I hit some shale at 25 feet and put a 3ft layer of clay back over the shale. In our area evaperation hasent been a problem as we have had 55'' of rain this year. We like to have around 12ft min so the livestock waterers below them have good head preasure and we can get 3 or more feet of ice on a cold winter with no snow cover. The 22 foot pond seemed like I was pushing up mount everst it probably would have been quicker to back up farther an make a longer push than to climb the extra 8' of 3 to 1 slope.
Cool pics.
i have a guy looking to put in a retention pond. i have no idea if that is what you guys are talking about here, but it looks close enough to me. he contacted the guy we just bought our dozer from, who sent him to me. this is the first dozer for us, so obviously we dont know how to make a pond. i have heard that a retention pond is pretty small and only 8-10 ft deep, does this sound good to you guys? also, does every pond need a keyway? if i remember correctly he said it would be 1/4 to 1/2 acre is all. thanks for your input. :drinkup
This is a pond we did at our neighbors. It was funded by the state.
Last one.