Good Morning from Texas. After spending 3 years building what we rednecks call a Barndominium I'm ready to get about property development. We've about a 100 acres up in Red River County TX with app 10 acres of coastal in front and a flat bottom area of pine trees and hardwoods in the back. I'd like to put a pond somewhere in the transition area, using the coastal area as runoff for the pond. There is a shallow spring fed pond that holds water year round in the bottom area.

Ever the do it yourselfer, I'm intent on doing the work myself. I have downloaded the NRCS pond construction manual (many thanks for the suggestion), and am approaching being dangerous. My initial question is of equipment: dozer, crawler loader, or 4x4 tractor with loader/blade? I realize that I'd be better of having it done, but prefer to jump in myself.

Please advise your thoughts. The soil material is Kullit and Wrightsville, seemingly pretty easy to dig, ranging from sandy to clay. Many Thanks.

I'll leave it to people more familiar with your soils and area for the good recommendations, but if you will run into groundwater I would think a tracked excavator would be one of the preferred tools.

You also did not say what size. A half acre pond is a whole nuther situation that say 3-10 acres. Will it be a dammed up ravine, or a completely dug pond? From my perception of your description of property it sounds like the containment area would mostly be dug.

And would the spoils be left right near the pond, and if not how far will it have to go? ....Big difference in needs.

Thanks for the replies. I'm figuring on app 1 acre and would not expect to have to move material too far. As suggested, it will be somewhat of a U dam or containment area, benefitting from the slope of the grassed area. Presently the intended area is app 5-6 feet below the grass meadow at the lowest point with the meadow increasing in slope up another 6 feet.

Another thing you will need to consider is where the water will come from to fill the pond. Will it be a groundwater filled pond or runoff or both. Sounds like you have runoff if you will be building a dam with higher ground above the pond. But the other consideration is if you have enough watershed to keep the pond at acceptable levels with your annual rainfall. If it is groundwater sourced there are issues of the groundwater both entering the pond as well as exiting (as in the pond going way low parts of the year)

Your local NRCS official should be able to give you information on your watershed area to fill the pond, groundwater levels, soil considerations in the dug area as well if it is suitable material for a dam, etc. He is likely even familiar with any regulations as far as permits, etc. you might need to stay on the good side of the law. Our local NRCS guy is a good one. I suspect the quality of information you get will be commensurate with the ability and willingness to help of your local government agent.

If you see other ponds in the area, talking to the landowners to see what their issues were might be worthwhile also.

One acre is a pretty easy size to do, especially if the area is open all the way around the pond. Our main pond was three acres, but we were limited on where we could push dirt so had to move more dirt that we would have needed if the dam area had not been bordered by a creek.

To give you an idea of watershed size importance, below is a picture of our pond. Our house is on top of a hill. The natural watershed into the pond was only about 5 acres. Not enough to keep it filled during dry periods. So we needed to build a terrace in the adjoining field to bring in another 5 or 6 acres of water. It is still marginal, but we get about 42 inches of rain a year, sometimes in large events, so even though the pond is probably 18" low now, it will recharge pretty quickly when we get in a wetter period. Size of watershed and annual rainfall (as well as size of rainfall events) are important in a pond filled with runoff. Picture shows added watershed via terrace added to farm land field in the right hand portion of the picture. Building sites are on the peak of the hill.