Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Spillway design in wooded pond?

Hello! New to the forum. My name is Troy and my wife and I are from Missouri and bought a cabin on 7 acres about a year ago. The place was not maintained and we spent the first year remodeling the cabin/house stuff and this year my plan is to "fix" the pond on the property. I have spent the last year or so clearing the honeysuckle and brush that has overtaken everything, here is a picture of about how bad it was starting out (pond is behind all the brush):

https://imgur.com/MgfJI6p

Here is a recent pic after clearing a lot of brush:

https://imgur.com/oN0TENG

Basically, I am looking for resources on spillway design (the "natural" spillway is on the left of the picture above). I have access to a skid-steer so when the time comes I can move some dirt/clay. The spillway empties into a large ravine so my plan was to close it off with rock on the backside, flowing into the ravine. Possibly building a bridge over the ravine in the future.

https://imgur.com/jCrQprJ
Picture of ravine behind the spillway

The topography is perfect for a pond in this location, there is natural runoff from all sides and a creek running into the pond from the North. The spillway/overflow had failed who knows how long ago, but once fixed the pond should fill up nicely. Here are a few pictures:

https://imgur.com/19rESsR
Trenched out a little to lower water level even more, you can see how once the spillway is fixed the water level would rise and enter back into the woods (currently still clearing/burning brush)

https://imgur.com/QYzZlEG
"Creek" that flows into the pond.

https://imgur.com/SjJn0kq
The end product should be a keyhole design with the main pond on the left and the marshy/creek area going into the woods. Recently planted a lot of baldcypress in that area.

There is a lot of potential with this pond as far as landscaping goes around the edges, as there is a lot of natural limestone to work with around the property. My plan currently is to:

1. Keep clearing brush along banks/cutting out some trees
2. Remove rock from failed spillway to use for landscaping later
3. Chip up all the brush I cut down or burn
4. Close off the failed spillway

Any responses or suggestions would be appreciated. I still have a while to go but will be working on it all this summer so wanted to get a thread going to specifically get ideas on doing a natural spillway/or concrete. And I am sure I am going to have a lot of other questions along the way. Thanks!

Welcome to the forum!

As you might know by now, photobucket has disabled hotlinking unless you pay them a ransom so we can't see your photos.

Repost using imgur

Thank you. Yes I was not aware of that, I have edited the post using Imgur. Appreciate it.

Your imgur pictures are not showing up at least at my work computer which may be the fault is on my end. Photobucket will work if folks use chrome and an extension that unblocks them. Thousands of pictures on the forum will remain in place so to me it makes sense to unblock the photobucket problem and keep all the old links live rather than try to find a new hosting service. Up to you.

Or you can just attach them under each post.

I am on a role with uploading the pictures. I went ahead and added the files as attachments so hopefully people are able to view those, sorry for the trouble!

Weird that I saw the pictures when originally posted, then they disappeared...

Thanks Canyon!!! I added an extension as you suggested and can now see all the old photobucket hosted pictures again!!!

Hi Rainman, are you able to download the .jpg's?

I guess I can rephrase my original post to a simple question even without the pictures.

What is the preferred overflow design for a small pond in a wooded area that has a pretty steady water supply?

Yobyort, how much flow is "fairly steady"?

Personally, I like bottom draw, automatic siphons as the primary spillway. The secondary, emergency spillway, should be about 1 foot above the primary, and be a wide, smooth channel that directs flow away from the dam. The e-spillway should be sloped gently and well vegetated to minimize erosion if the spillway is put into use during exceptionally heavy rain events. A nicely sized siphon can remove a tremendous amount of water, and if a bottom draw system, the worst water is pulled out of the pond first.

I had seen your pictures shortly after you posted...I'm impressed with how much you have improved the site removing brush...you are giving it a nice, park-like setting!!!

I don't see the imgur pictures, but your files stored on this server download just fine

It was a hidden gem behind all that brush! I will do some more research on the bottom withdrawal spillway as I also think that will be the best option for this pond since it is around so many trees/organic matter.

As far as the steady flow of water, to clarify, it is more just a lot of runoff during the rainy season so I imagine after closing up the spillway the pond should fill up quick with a wet summer (hopefully). There is also a spot on the other side of the dam that originally seemed to be an emergency spillway so I should be able to incorporate that as well. Thank you for the feedback and I will update with progress and if I have any other questions. Much appreciated.