Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help I think I bought a catastrophe!

My husband and I just purchased 20 acres with an approx. 1 1/2 acre spring fed pond. We were told the pond had a "leak", which being novices did not alarm us. Well, after reading this forum I think we are in serious trouble. Our dam is completely overgrown with both large and small trees. The backside is no longer symmetrical in appearance and there is an area that definitely looks as though a minor landslide has occurred. Just below that area is a large DEAD pine that must be part of the problem. Immediately below this dead tree there is standing water that is running off.

The dam is on the east side of the pond and extends around the northern and southern corners. The western shore is a natural depression. The water level is 15 - 20 feet from the shoreline. After heavy rains two weeks ago it rose about 2 feet but since has returned to the previous level.

I am about to post pictures. Anywhere you see tall sawgrass is where water should be!

It will be extremely difficult/expensive to repair as the backside of the dam is heavily wooded and it would require clearing the land just to get equipment into the area. Also the backside of the dam is nearly a vertical drop off, so doing work by hand would be dangerous.

I'm open to any and all suggestions.

Here is a link to the photos. My Pond Album

Please excuse the litter in the photos. The land and pond had been neglected for some time prior to us purchasing it two weeks ago.

Hey Anna,
I just looked at your photos. I have several questions.
What role did the pond play in your decision to purchase the land?
Why did you buy the land?
And, do you intend to keep the property for a long time, or is it a short-term investment for you?
These answers will determine the advice I give.

Hi Bob,

We purchased the land to build our home upon. We plan to keep the property as long as we live. The pond played a major role in our decision to purchase. We own several large dogs and we also rescue and rehome dogs. Most of the dogs we own/foster have orthopedic difficulties and swimming is the absolute best exercise for restoring/maintaining muscle mass. We were also looking forward to having a backyard swimming/fishing hole and something picturesque to look at from our future deck.

Thanks!

Hi Anna, Welcome to Pond Boss:
Don't feel bad, I bought a catastrophe too, and now it has become my mission to fix it, a worthwhile cause. Different than your CATastrophe, but still a problem. You at least have the power (and now the avenue) to fix it. Good luck and stay involved here with the Pond Boss Family!

Hi Catmom!

Thanks for the warm welcome. This pond has me obsessed and worried. I'm even dreaming about ponds! A couple of weeks ago we got more rainfall (13") in three days than we usually get in a month and the dam did hold, so maybe it is not as bad as I think. It also has overflow pipes at each end but they seem low when compared to where the water level should be.

The pictures were taken a day after the rains. The other problem is the pesky dollar bonnet. You can't see them in the pictures because they were under water at the time but at least 60% of the surface is covered in it and then there is the grass. I've been reading up on both and it seems like I will have to poison the dollar bonnet and get some grass carp to take care of the grass once we get the dam and leak fixed. There is also a lot of debris and limbs in the pond that will have to be dredged up.

I'm afraid fixing this pond is going to cost more than my house! As soon as we get a boat out to the property I will take depth readings. The former owner said it was 30' deep in the center and with the height of the dam this might be accurate.

Thanks for the words of comfort. I'm waiting on Bob's reply with baited breath...

Anna

Well you're in good company here. I think that quote describes just about everybody here.

Anna, Anna, Anna:
Welcome to the dream world. Girlfriend Lake Chair and I have dreams on a regular basis about this lake, Muddy Green Waterfalls with cats floating on air mattresses, talking whales at pools in airports, Weed (the kind you smoke) growing all over the lake, she even had a dream that I walked on water-------welcome to our world!

Anna,welcome to the forum.You are now the proud owner of a pond.An obsession that will grow and grow until it consumes your entire being.When this finally occurs,you can become committed to the PondBoss funnyfarm.But dont worry,we keep it pretty clean,and theres always LOTS of company around.

Hi Anna,

Besides being told the dam leaks, have you observed any leakage?

Just because the dam is in disrepair doesn't mean it's leaking... yet! If it isn't leaking, you have little to worry about. A little work removing trees and backfilling collapsed areas should fix it right up. If it DOES show signs of leaking, it can be tough to fix, but not necessarily a disaster. I'll defer to the experts on that.

Best of luck,,,

Hey Anna,
Welcome...glad ya made it.
Your thread title makes me chuckle...
I think I bought a catastrophe
Some of us did it a little differently...
I think I created a catastrophe
Call it what you will. Ultimately, it winds up just being a regular old pond.

Welcome, Anna! If indeed, there is a 30 ft area near the dam, it sounds like you will have plenty of water for your intendede activities. I am also waiting to here from the head pondmeister.

Welcome Anna. As you can tell we can kind of obsessed with this stuff. Yeah lots of us dream about this and pray for more or less rain.

Wait until Lusk comes back. He always has the answers. He is THE Pond Boss. BTW, I'm whatever my Wife lets me be.

Too funny. Ironically there is an old mobile home on the property that some kids spray painted peace signs and the words "Love Shack" on the sides. Hubby found a set of bright green mardi gras beads with huge plastic green marijuana leaves in the bushes. Seems like there is a psychic connection already. LOL!





I was planning on adding a garden and some livestock later. Seems I am on my way to creating my own funny farm and this pond is going to send me over the edge. Nice to know I will have good company. Thanks!



Yes it is defintely leaking. The level rises with rain and always returns to the exact same level within a day or so. There is water on the backside of the dam too. By the lay of the land you can tell that the pond should be much larger.



I'm sure that with this new farming/ponding excursion I will create many disasters and learn lots of lessons. Glad I've got a great group of folks to share my follies with!

Thanks everyone for the extremely warm welcome! I've stopped drinking heavily and have put away the guns and dynamite for now. Can't wait to see what Bob comes up with.

Anna,

A belated welcome. Love your posts.

First, we love lessons -- especially with pictures.

Second, dynamite could be the answer, it is just a little difficult to purchase the stuff these days.

I'm sure Bob Lusk, or possibly Mike Otto, will have something quite insightful.

In the meantime, it sounds like all the hard work, and expensive work, has been done to your pond. Yes, you probably need to have your dam repaired. But, if it held water for many years, I'd suspect that it just needs some loving care. I'm not sure money will be the leading factor. You probably will have to drain the pond and let it dry for several months if the dam needs repair.

If you are new to the area, I'd ask around for the names of some good local excavators to come out and take a look. Heck, even if you've lived in the area for a long time, I'd try to find some good local excavators.

By the way, here in West Virginia, a good mobile home, like you describe, is known as a "Metal Mansion." We own one on seven acres, which is a few miles from our house/pond. We use as our "guest house" for friends and relatives. Our city friends love to tell tales of staying in our "mansion" for a weekend. (My college-professor brother-in-law, who has no problem mingling with crowds and wandering the streets of New York, Beijing, or New Delhi -- is afraid to sit on the Mansion's porch, in fear that a chipmunk, possum, or bear might attack!)

Keep us informed.

Ken

Anna:
I am so glad that we have such a smart girl joining the Pond Boss Family! You can post photos, you love animals, now you have a life long love (and science experiment) to boot. I'm sure it will become your passion, what could be better? You get to take the lemon and make lemonade!

What is nice in your case, it is YOURS to restore, unlike my CATastrophe, which is one of 6 lakes, ruled by an 11 member H.O. Assn. Board. GF LakeChair and I have had to take them all on, now have to manage 6 lakes to fix one. We ham and egg them all pretty good with the good cop (GF) bad cop (me) routine, I take all the heat, and I am good at it. GF is the proper professional. I have had the cops cruising my house, have been threatened to be sued, been slandered here in Urban Stepfordville Subdivision. The night she won the election I dropped her off crying at home, they were so mean to us, and all we do is love our lake! Fast forward 2 years, and the progress is amazing, and empowering, and interesting, and fun, and there are these Lake Treatment Boys of Summer (before we were prohibited to even talk to the bad lake treatment co), and traveling, it couldn't be better.

Fast forward to 2 years from now, and I bet your success will be just as good if not better! Let us know about the dreams, I wonder if it is a girl thing?

As far as the drinking, I feel your pain, we have found ourselves drinking during the day and taking medicine to sleep, now we just plan to party at all these great conferences. When we get out of here, we laugh the whole time, and can't keep our eye make up on from the tears, it is a blast!

Ken

LOL! That is funny! At first I considered the MM for use as a goat hutch but it is in such bad shape that they would probably demand improvements before using it for shelter. I can see it now, 130 lb Boer Goats picketing for better living conditions!

I called the local volunteer fire department and offered it to them as a training exercise. These guys came unglued! They are so excited to come and burn it down and when they found out about the pond they started talking about drafting water exercises they could practice too! These fellows obviously don't get much action and are beside themselves with glee to get to set something on fire and then practice putting it out. I will definitely take pics. A few years ago half of the department got arrested for arson. Seems they were setting fires so they would have something to do. A couple of them are still in the hoosegow.

BTW, our local extension office offers a "Pond Management" class. Do you think it is worth the time? Anyone attend one of these?

Catmom, I dreamed that I was in an inflatable rubber canoe in the middle of the pond and the dam broke. I ended up in a tall tree and had to parachute down. Why was I wearing a parachute in a canoe??? Gotta lay off that Cajun food before bed or maybe cut back to just one or two glasses of wine and not the whole bottle!

Anna:
Take any classes that you can, so interesting. Pond Boss is having a conference in Sept. in Mo., that isn't too far from you, then you can meet all these great experts and family members.
I love the dream, so vivid! It must be a girl thing! I haven't had any dreams in a couple of weeks, Margaret has some wild ones!
So instead of Lake Treatment guys, you have fire fighters? Not bad! That was easy!

Absolutely attend. The best thing about these gatherings is the contacts you will make.

Ken

I noticed how politly she DIDNT mention that most of the nutcases on here will probably be attending too.

You gals are cracking me up.

Anna:
Tom G grows vegetables in the winter, Brussell Sprouts! Burgermeister likes gut bomb hamburgers.GF Lake Chair will be coming aboard soon-she likes to drink wine and get her nails done. Her dog Cleo has her personality, and she is a nutritionist too, but for people, so you will hit it off! She is the perfect person to be the LakeChair. I was thinking, this is only a year and a half since we took over, before GF came along, I was fighting this battle alone, now we are sisters in arms! We have to kill all our fish soon, thanks to GF getting the survey done. Here you have to seize power to get the money to get it spent on your lake and deal with a lot of complainers that think the Treatment Co is the answer, they are only a piece of the puzzle.

Anna:
I had a nightmare last night! In this dream GF and I had someone out here measuring the lake with a tape measure cause our Boys of Summer couldn't do our lake anymore - In this dream I got my T-Shirt with their name on it in the mail, and when I tried it on it was like a dress, black and gold, how weird. I woke up in a cold sweat!

WOW. No need for such drastic action. Who recommend THAT???

If us forum members can't drink, bear arms and have dynamite then I'm telling you right now I quit!

And I'm quite sure TomG and Sunil will be right behind me.

What's next, ban Diet Mountain Dew?

Oh and I'd tell you about my dreams but I learned the hard way never to do that again. The last person that I told one of my dreams to immediately vomited and began weeping uncontrollably.

Took me a week to get the stain off of my favorite silk hawaiian shirt and Fatty McButterpants has never been the same since.

Lynda,

I'd tell you what Freud would say about that dream but we can't post it here.