Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site About ready to dig, or am I?

SilverT: There are several things you should do before begining your one acre "grave site" aka pond.

1. Go to a MSU Extension office and for $3.50 or $4.50 buy "Managing Michigan Ponds for Sport Fishing". Excellant book for the money; esp for MI & northern ponds. There is a very good section in "Building Fish Ponds" that deals with pond Depth. The Booklet has been discussed at length here in previous posts. A search using "Michigan" of all Forum headings will reveal several discussions about this booklet. Deeper depth is distinctly better for MI winters even if it means your budgeted money builds a somewhat smaller pond (3/4ac instead of 1 ac) but with proper depth it will resist winter fish kills (esp as the pond ages) during Mt.Pleasant's snowy winters. I graduated from CMU w/ a MS aquatic biology degree.

2. Make sure your contractor understands / agrees to first stockpile all your upper topsoil. He should then use this to overlay all the exposed and compacted soils. This will allow much better establishment of watershed vegetation such as deep rooted fescues or even blue grass-fescue mixes. Rapid and good revegetation stands can be a real problem in compacted clay soils. Many pond owners over look this feature.

3. Make sure your contractor agrees and understands to just not dig a hole, but to BUILD a pond. To help insure a leak proof pond and not waste your money on building a "leaker", he should over excavate by at least one bull dozer blade width the perimeter of the entire pond zone down to a depth of field tile or tree root depth. This over excavated zone should then be recompacted in thin layers of clay by using the blue clay from the remaining depths and basin of the pond. This wide band of compacted clay is your core trench that will be about 8' wide and have a high resistance to water seepage out of the pond. This compacted core trench also insures there are no hidden sand or gravel veins within 8' of the upper 5' to 7' of the basin. Most "leaker" ponds in good clay soils leak in the upper 3'-4' ft. of the surface. FYI with your annual weather and precipitation levels and with a full pond that has a properly compacted core trench; the water level should not drop any more than 12" -15" even in a drought year. More water level drop than this is a leakage situation. Keep in mind, all earthen ponds leak, it is a matter of just how much. In our experience, "well build" core trench ponds in blue clay maintain water levels noted above even during the driest summers. This may cost 1K to 2K more money but it is well worth the extra money if your pond does not leak and you can sleep well at night.

4. A "sheeps-foot roller" (big knobby toothed roller) is very important when compacting dirt / soils when using bulldozers. Dozers are not designed to compact dirt, their weight is spread out over the wide tracks. Sheep-foot rollers are designed for compacting soil & used by wise construction pond people. If your pond builder does not use double barrel sheepsfoot rollers, look for another pond builder!. Single barrel sheep foot rollers are too light and bounce around too much for best compaction.

5. If you value your money, check on the references of your pond builder and go look at several of his ponds and talk to the pond owners. You will get an education.

6. If your landscape is flat as you say then the contractor should use the excavated soils to provide / build you a drainage watershed that will drain runoff water into the pond to help fill your pond and keep it full. All the water shed should be over laid with some topsoil for growing grasses and minimizing erosion into the pond. But with a well built leak proof pond you should not need lots of or very little water shed to drain water into your pond. Our local ponds in NW Ohio that have good core trenches and little or no water shed and are always full in spring and drop very little (12"-15") during summer. These ponds even have shallow buried over-flow pipes to drain off excessive rainfall. Annual precipitation in your area should be around 30"-40"/yr. which should MORE than enough water to keep a well built core trenched pond full. Many in our area use only eve-spout (roof gutter) water & precipitation to keep their ponds full.

7. "You dig a hole, but you BUILD a pond". "A 3' drop" is unacceptble with a well built core trenched pond in yellow or blue clay soils.

8. It is much better to spend a little more money up front getting a properly built core trenched pond than more money for each of several years later trying to fix a "leaky pond" which can cost more than the original pond cost.

9. Come back if you have any more ???..