My 1/2 acre pond is a hole that was dug in the bend of a dry creek bed with a small masonry spillway. My driveway to my house crosses the outflow side of the creek beneath the spillway. The pond is 50 yards directly in front of the house. During large rain events A LOT of water goes over the spillway and eventually over my driveway as the culvert pipes that were put in before I bought the property are undersized. I am in the process of trying to find a driveway guy that knows a lot about runoff control and appropriately sizing culvert pipes. I looked into building a bridge, but I think the cost would just be too much. We are also looking into circling our driveway in front of our house and back out the other side of the property crossing the creek that feeds the pond in the process. In this location I was thinking a low water crossing would be the best option.

My question is has anyone else had to cross creeks/spillway overflow with a driveway? What worked best. Do you have any suggestions and/or pictures? What are some questions I need to ask the contractor to make sure they are capable? This whole thing is going to be pretty expensive, so I want to make sure I only have to do it once. Thanks.

Yes, my overflow and spill way both drain to a crick that I have a driveway going over. There was originally no culvert but a large wooden bridge capable of holding a car. I did not like the bridge since it was old and deteriorating. My farmer removed the bridge and dropped in a 20' section of 36" corrugated piping. This sees and handles a lot of water very well.

You will be looking for someone who understands watershed, topo maps, soil types, grades (slopes) of the surrounding watershed, ground cover, tile types, culvert lengths and the effects on water flow, etc. All these things (among others) go into determining the size of a culvert pipe.

I would be tempted to discuss your situation with an engineer from the local road dept and see if you can get some free advice or at least a contractor recommendation.

A cheap DIY solution is to lay in cement blocks with the tops at current grade (at bottom of creek) with holes up and down and with long side parallel with water flow. Blocks should slope up on approach and exit. Lay dry bags on concrete on the downstream side to add extra blowout prevention (also with long side parallel to water flow. Fill holes in block with 2" limestone to finish off. An added benefit is the exercise you get:) This link shows one but blocks should be turned 90 degrees from what is shown to avoid being rolled by water.

https://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Pondering_creek_crossing_options/

RAH, I think you forgot the link. Thanks for the tip. I am tempted to do a DIY, but the amount of water that comes down from the watershed is incredible. I am afraid any DIY I did myself would wash away after the first flash flood (which we have about 2 or 3 a year).

Thats sort of the way mine was... lots of water moving so just put down some big stone and crushed ashphalt grindings to lock in the culvert pipe and prevent erosion... flows good and plenty strong to hold a car, truck, tractor etc.

Has anybody ever put in a flatcar bridge? I know a traditional bridge would probably be too expensive, but the thing now is to make a bridge using an old railroad flatcar. Seems like that would be much more cost effective. Still more expensive than a few culverts though.

The county I live in using old rail cars for the bridges. They are extreme strong.

I have often considered using a large triple axle trailer that can be purchased for cheap as a bridge but never did it. I'll be someone on here has done it.

Added link. If you have more water moving than I do during flooding, better build an arc. The trick is to not have the ford fighting that water, but rather running over an artificial hard bottom to the creek. If you come up to Indiana, I can show you one installed in 1990.

I ran into this issue in recent years, the property where I put my pond has a pretty decent sized creek across the front half of it, I built me a riprap low water crossing while I did some planning, I seen a an old, heavy, lowboy trailer sell for very little and it didn't occur to me that that would have made a great bridge till after it was sold, facepalm,all it would have needed was some new decking. shat I wound up doing was go to a friend of mine that has a precast concrete plant, makes manholes, box culverts and concrete pipe and such, he wound up having a few over run 10'x6' inside box culverts that I was able to obtain for a fraction of the original cost, basically just enough to recoup his material costs plus a little. the biggest obstacle was setting them in place as the weighed about 20T apiece, I had three 6' sections giving me 18 ft of bridge, they were built to go under a 4 lane road so were plenty heavy built, I have crossed them with a d6 dozer several times during the pond building process, turned out to be the most economical solution for me. I would post some pictures but my iphone takes 3+ megabite pics and have yet to be able to figure out how to post one.

Yeah, I have looked into box culverts as well. But if you have to pay full price those things are very expensive.

The problem with making a permanent crossing over our creek is upstream neighbors trees falling into the creek, and washing down and stopping up any reasonable box culvert, causing an end around by the creek, or a dam up and flooding. I worry about the big box culvert (literally a short bridge) on the highway down the creek from me. They have raised the highway so much it is above the level of my walkout basement. I try to keep my part of the creek unobstructed, and if any tree falls, I cut it into smaller pieces that will pass the bridge. I can't control what the neighbors do, but sometimes their trees will wash down and get hung on one of mine. Then I cut it up after the water recedes. Silty wood is hard on chains, btw.

Had a log come down our creek, and the covered footbridge that a built 15 years earlier that was normally 5 feet above the water level did not make it. Replaced it with telephone poles and planks. A lot of work to build the original bridge.

I have a fairly large creek on my driveway and put in two 6 foot diameter culverts. I looked at used bridges, 18 wheeler flat trailers, culverts, and concrete low water crossings. there are some really good low water crossings in Oklahoma to look at. It is another one of those just depends. Concrete low water is a really good way to handle water that goes up and down fairly quick.

Good point. A ford should not be crossed with fast water moving through, even only a foot deep. Might get stuck for a day with a ford.

Brian, it sounds like you went down the same path as me. Wanted something that looks better on the eyes than huge culverts, but in the end everything else is WAY more expensive.

RAH, if we complete the circle drive around the pond like the boss-lady wants the ford through the creek will only be used during normal water conditions. The bridge/culverts will be the primary access to the house and will be sized accordingly.

Our creek can go from a raging torrent that would wash a bulldozer away to safe to wade across three hours later.

A Chevy might be a better option!

I can bring the jeep if needed.

Problem with the culverts is they are always getting stopped up and have to be cleaned out. I had hoped the 6' would be less of an issue, and they are somewhat, by they still get clogged up. After the ice storm it was TERRIBLE! That is where I think 5 or 6 18" culverts capped in concrete that allowed it to flow over might be a better option. We also designed mine where it is about 2' higher than the grade of the road. This has really worked good at keeping the flood times from washing out around culverts. Much easier to fix the washout on the road than the culverts. Just FYI.

Guys, if you live in Texas the below link looks like a very valuable resource. It is a topographical map and you click where you want to put a culvert and it will determine the acres of runoff, elevation change and will even calculate the required culvert size. I am sure other states have a similar resource. This could also be very handy when preparing to build a pond and determining the acres of watershed that feeds the pond.

http://tfsfrd.tamu.edu/planmylandoperation/

The below FEMA document also has tips and best practices for Bridges, Culverts and Low Water Crossings.

https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1724-25045-9448/fema_p_778_508compliant.pdf

We have a similar one in Arkansas. I just used it to determine that there are about 770 acres of drainage area above where our creek crosses our property. That's enough to support about a 77 acre lake.