For those that know more about this than me, I need suggestions on where to direct the water. The pic shows brown as roads/paths, red is the old culvert, dark blue is the ditch/creek, and light blue is the overflow direction. The western shore is quite a bit higher the the woods and ditch behind it, it is where the pond builders dumped a lot of dirt a long time ago. Water comes down the ditch to the culvert and when it backs up it goes over the forest floor to the pond. The culvert is ~12-14" rusting steel and the top is slightly above grade(no dirt). The bottom of it sits probably 12" above the ditch bottom; so water sits back there a lot instead of draining. Once I move the entrance, no vehicles will travel over the culvert. The options I see are:

1: Rebury new culvert low enough to drain ditch properly.
2: Remove culvert comletely, extend ditch to pond, and put foot bridge over ditch.
3. Remove culvert and route ditch where overflow travels pond.


runoff directions at old culvert by jeffreythree1, on Flickr

Can you tell us the purpose of the change? Will one way vs another cause problems to the pond - like extra soil washing in ? What about the effect on the land ?

Well, it is a dented, rusty, and I think 15 year old steel culvert that is only half buried. I figure it will collapse or posssibly plug up forcing the water to divert along the light blue line as it already does during large rain events. Being elevated as it is now forces the ditch to act as a sediment trap, a mosqito breeding ground, and limits the usefullness of having a culvert since it is partially above the ground level. If I remove the culvert or lower it, then dirt will have an easier time getting into the pond. If I use the light blue line, the sediment will go into a wetland area and I might lose a couple of trees. I would like to be prepared with a plan in advance for any repairs or ditch digging in the event of the culverts failure.

What about replacing the culvert and putting it to the grade you want?

If the ground in front of the culvert is easily accessible for equipment to clean out the ditch, I'd rather use it as a sediment trap rather than have the dirt wash into the pond. Toss in a netful of FH or mosquito fish and they'll take care of the skeeters.

Dig the ditch a bit deeper, drop the culvert so it's below grade (replacing it with a good one at the same time). If you did that, you could increase the size of the culvert at the same time to handle the larger volume of water.

I was thinking the ditch would be a cheap option, just dig it out. Now I realize that having that sediment trap is a good thing and only a culvert will keep it seperated from the pond. I guess it is time to start hunting Clist for some since I already need to replace 2 others at creek crossings that have already failed.