Our 8 acre pond was built in the 1930's by the WPA. It is heavily silted and shallow (1-4' H20 depth). Digging the pond out is not a viable option for us.
Would it be possible to raise the overall height of the dam and position a new outlet pipe higher in the dam to add depth and surface acres of water?
Yes, that is much less expensive than trying to dig the hole deeper. I've never done it.
However, the question(I know someone has the answer) is how to core through the old dam top to properly tie the 2 together.
We just renovated a 6.4 acre lake. We removed 75% of silt and dug out water line to an average depth of 5 ft with 3 to 1 slopes. We used that dirt to raise dam 2 feet and the backslope from 1 to 1 to a 4 to 1 slope. Renovating a lake of this size can be very costly either way you do it. For every foot you add to the dam the yardage amount goes up approximately 18%. Meaning if you have a 20,000 cubic yard dam and add a foot that would be an additional 3,600 yards. The dam that we currently added onto was all done from the back due to some water still being left in the lake. We stripped all topsoil core into top of dam as well along the original backslope that we added to. Cored about 4 feet deep with trackhoe. The is 40 years old.
Welcome AdamsLand, Good info
strmchzr, Make sure you tie the old to the new.
Check the new waterline make sure that it will not put water where you don't want it.
Send pictures.
ditto the welcome, AdamsLand....and ditto the call for pics.
I would be interested to see a thread started on your renovation.
Here is a link to the pictures of the 6.4 acre lake renovation. We finished all of our work yesterday except for spreading silt which will be done in a couple more months once it dries a little more. Pier man has a little more work to do on wetland trails on upper end of lake.
http://picasaweb.google.com/AdamsLandImprovement/PecanManLakeRenovation?feat=directlink
Thank you all for the welcome. I look forward to getting on here when I can. Still trying to learn the system on here
You have done some work and a lot of it. Good job.
There was a picture in the Pecan Lake section that had a small trench cut in the dam. Was that for pipe or to drain the water.
Otto
That was for the siphon pipe. We V'd out the trench, and istalled the pipe with seep collar. We water down the material when we go back into the trench due to it being a concentrated area and for a good seal.
Thanks.
That is what it looked like.
adamsland,
Do your siphon drains function only as an overflow or do they also function as bottom drains to adjust water levels?
-HH
All of the ones that we have installed are for overflow only. The larger lakes we usually put in a construction pipe which can which has a flange or valve on it to drain or lower water level. There is a way to make siphon pipe to drain lake but it would have to be primed and a I know at least one valve installed on the air vent.
Thanks.
I have seen pvc siphons with valves for draining but not metal pipe. What is the largest pond you will use a siphon for?
-HH
The largest lake that we have put a siphon pipe in has been the 6.4 acre lake in the pictures. We have put several in lakes of this size.
If you are just using the siphon for draining purposes I would say use PVC. The only big downfall to the PVC siphon is if pipe ever pulls apart due to swelling and contracting of the ground you will have to dig it up and repair.
A 24 acre lake that we are bidding on to replace existing drop pipe with a 24"siphon pipe . The main thing is to have accurate drainage numbers in order to get right size pipe. TCEQ got involved due to dam blowing out about 10 years ago and didnt want to do the siphon pipe but it would work.
Engineered plans that we recieved today through TCEQ say otherwise. Have to use reinforced concrete pipe, concrete headwall with debree guard and use stabilized sand around concrete pipe.