Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site New pond ideas/recomendations

Hello, long time lurker, first time poster here!

I recently acquried about 7 acres of land. Here is the topo of it.


I plan on puting in a 1 acre pond in the NW corner of my property. Through the property is a creek called dry creek. However it is usually wet seeing how it is at water level at the bottom of the creek.

I plan on making the pond like this.


Does my topo seem sufficient?

Any other advice or thoughts are appreciated!

Greetings and welcome to the forum, Nate from Nebraska.

I am truly lousy at reading topo maps (more at home with Topo Gigio), but it looks like there is less than 10 feet of elevation drop across the prospective pond basin (?). If I'm correct, the pond may need to be a mix of impounded and excavated (I have a pond like that).

One potential problem I see is that the water would back up pretty close to the property line (I have a pond like that, too). You will want to ensure that the water level rise when the pond goes up to the emergency spillway doesn't cause your neighbor's property to get wet regularly.

Hey, Nate.

I'm from Nebraska, too.

PM me sometime and let me know what part of the state you're in.

Bruce

Theo, I am doubting I will causs any issues with flooding because I will create a spillway into the creek, but I think that if the pond fills up that much its due to a flood and the creek will have spilled its banks anyhow. The area is in a floodzone (obviously, due to proximity to creek).

I am looking at taking the pond dirt and raising up some land for the house to be on and then I'll fill out a LOMA with FEMA that will hopefully take it out of the flood plain.

Nate
Good to have you on board.
Using the dirt out of the pond to build up the surrounding area is a great idea. Using up the dirt from a pond is can be a problem. Keep us posted.
otto

Quote "I'll fill out a LOMA with FEMA that will hopefully take it out of the flood plain."

I did that when we dug our first pond. I hired my original land surveyor to do it. He gave me a very cheap rate. I talked to him a few years latter about doing the same thing on another piece of property and he told me that it would cost the heck out of me for him to do it again. He had apparently never went thru the process before he had done mine and it was a royal pain in the Behind dealing with FEMA. Good luck with your project.

We plan on breaking groud very shortly! Here is a current picture at this point. The pond will be in the background behind the house. Unfortunatly, due to money constraints at this point, the pond will not be as big as I like and will only be about .2 acres. The dirt will be used to make a gradual slope away from the house, which sits up 3ft, from the main ground level.

Be sure the pond embankments are high enough to be above the 100 yr flood levels. It is a pain to deal with the problems from a creek overflowing into the pond. A little prevention at this point may save future headaches. Although a small 0.2 acre pond can be drained and or renovated at minimal cost.

Instead of putting embankments around the pond, we are putting an embankment on the creek, which will prevent it from spilling onto my whole property, so hopefull that entire mess can be avoided

You do not appear to be taking any short cuts on the house,
-BOMB SHELTER

Yeah lol, it has a deck (the main floor) on it now and will have roof trusses installed by year end....Its amazing how fast houses go up when your General Contractor knows his stuff!

Send pictures ehen you get them

I did something similar, built a house in a 100 year floodplain and used the pond spoils to raise my house and barn. I had to hire a surveyor to make sure I was above the flood plain, and that same surveyor sent the paperwork to FEMA so I could get a LOMA and get out of paying flood insurance.

In addition to whatever your surveyor charges, FEMA charges $425 for "processing the paperwork" and gets back to you within a month or so. Also you have to have someone in your local government sign a form stating they are aware and approve of the changes you have made.

Other than the bull&^%# $425 fee (I thought thats what taxes are for) it wasnt too bad

Well, our pond is dugg and here are some pictures of the house at this point as well. For all my pictures (mostly of the house construction), you can visit my flickr page: My Flickr


Its not a huge pond, but it around .25 acres (best guess). We basically made a deal to use as much dirt as possible to fill around the house and not a size agreement.


The pond is 12ft deep at its lowest point.


Here is the view from the back facing to the houses backyard.


And just for fun, here is the house at this point since you all saw the basement earlier.

Very nice looking house, and I'm sure the pond will be lots of fun at .2 acres. AaronM's pond is a similar size I believe and he has some monster bluegill and some very nice smallmouth too.

It is hard to tell how much water drains in to the pond.
Have you had any rain to see how fast it will fill.