Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Spillway dilemma

Well I got the images made.. forgot the camera yesterday..
So all can now see the Big Dip in St John Barbados
NOt sure how to upload inages but I will get it do.. I hope I don't post to many..
The Images circle around the moving from the southeast side to the northwest side The Damn spillway will be on the north side

Is that sugar cane back there?

Yups.. It the Biggest crop on the island..

How much land do you guesstimate runs toward the big dip (your drainage amount)? Or, better still, can you get a topo map from Google Earth or a similar on-line mapping website?

I hate to mention this, But..
I was in Hawaii once just after a hurricane and just after they had harvested the sugar cane. The ocean was red for a mile out to sea where the clay and water from the cane field drained. The water from the run off cut a stream that was at least 4 feet deep on its way to the ocean.
The reason I did mention it is because the cane field looks to be up hill from the pond site.

Don't hate it.. The cane field is on the low side and It may be a fact of life in Hawaii but not the case here.. I think its because they have a greater elevation Barbados is a coral cap island.. and it's highest point is about 1300 feet above sea level.. The Parish of St. John is one of the highest points so the water doesn't have time to build up any speed to cut the landscape.. Along with We have a natural gully system that is well established so rain water heads for the gullies. Also unlike Hawaii cane harvest happens at the beginning of the dry season.. and they replant before the next rainy season.

I have been trying to get a Topo Survey from the surveyor for the past 2 months.. Just one of the wonderful things of working with the local here.. They never think things are time sensitive..or if it ain't staring them in the eyes.. they forget..I am not sure who does an on line topo of Barbados.. I am still in the process of trying to locate the land on Google Earth.. But to answer your question ... I don't know..GRIN...But if I was to really guesstimate I say no more than 4 acres..

That is good news. Are there any ponds in your area and if so what do they do? We have much the same water run off system that you do, over time nature has decided the best route and established paths for the water to follow. Here the waterways are government property so there is little fear of someone blocking them, new builders channel their runoff into a nearby waterway.
Is it possible to use these established waterways? Maybe use more than one to reduce the amount of runoff?

My pond is smaller than yours and I get over 6 and 1/2 feet of rain a year, most of which falls in 3 months. My pond overflows during a 3 month period, but even in heavy rain the overflow is easily managed with an 18" wide spillway, I have never seen it over an inch deep. I have very little run off so the water is almost all direct rainfall. I overflow into a waterway that runs all year round and my contribution is barely noticed. Additionally, I lose about an inch a day to evaporation and seepage. I gain about a half inch a day from ground water.

I know that doesn't help much I am just trying to give you an idea of the size of your problem. Not counting the government. I checked google earth and what I saw was well photographed.

Yeah There are ponds in the local area.. but They all are used for irrigation and have liners..and even thinking the liner idea puts this idea out of any reasonable price range for me. There is also the mentality here we do it this way cuz we have ALWAYS done it that way. no matter that just around the corner from where I live there is a natural pond that has no liner.
This attitude pervades this culture..simply put there is only the Bajan way. I could digress with so many examples but why bore you with them.. GRIN..
As to the natural flow of water.. unfortunately there are no gullies in the area above the land.. this chunk of dirt is one of the high points..so I can not gather or send excess water in that manner.
Listening to you Rad and what your situation is sounds really similar to mine.. so if you are saying you have very little overflow from your spillway.. then I might just be lucky and not need to worry about this..
Let ask you how deep is your pond and how long did it take to fill???
I Was talking to a friend today about this pond problem.. and his position was just build it and don't ask. He's a native Bajan.... in some ways its easier to ask for forgiveness then permission.

Somebody said something about waterproofing I asked for some explanation about this..but they never elaborated.. Maybe they will this time..GRIN

here a bit of information that might be useful/fun.. I posted the location on Google Earth..
Hope it works. When I doubled checked the link the Goggle Maps don't have the location.. so view thru Google Earth

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1113269/an/0/page/0#1113269

I would say we are in the same boat and could go on for days on that's the Thai way. If I could find a good rum here it would ease that somewhat.
I would also lean towards build it and see. I started with 15 feet at the beginning of Feb, 2nd month of our dry season's 5 month span. By the end of November I was overflowing. But, I was half full before the track hoe left the job site, water is usually not more than a meter below the ground surface and usually around a foot.
I was thinking, were I you I would over build the dam, height wise and let nature take it's course, might plant a drain pipe at the bottom or somewhere in the dam, just in case. If you are not getting much runoff and filling only from rain it might work. You will need to consider the wide swing in water level. Mine swings around 3 feet during the year. So plan on how to overcome the sticky clay walk to waters edge in the dry.
I almost for got what is your goal with the pond? Fish? nuclear reactor cooling pond?

Airwreck,
You are at the top of the mountain I am at the bottom. Here are 3 shots that will give you some idea of my area. The 1st pic was taken in Jan 05, last pic was Apr last year.

"There's nothing you can do about it - it's just bad luck."

Thanks Rad.. The images look great..Cept Can you believe anything will grow in that stuff??? My soil on the land is this red clay crap.. the locals think its great soil.. harder then cement during the dry season and some what pliable during the rainy. if it wasn't for dumping about 20 Cubic metric tons of Bagasse (Cane mud) the front part would be a waste land.. GRIN..
When you reference a drain pipe at the bottom of the dam is this just another way of saying Spillway or culvert??? I know you have a wide spillway at the top of your dam.. I was not going to use that method cuz the driveway going to go over the dam..
How long after your completion was the last photo taken?? and how fast did that bougainvillea grow????

I think that by the time I am done.. the Dam will be over built in height ways.. My thoughts were from the bottom of the dip dig down about 15 or 20 feet. so I would have some depth during the dry season..
As to the goal with the pond.. It gonna to be a place to put those annoying village kids. or anyone caught stealing fruit ROFL..Both my wife and I like to be thought of as the crazy white folks. so the locals won't bother us.. :-P , seriously .. its gonna be for fishing.. in the beginning Tilapia, and I hope with some assistance with US domestic friends I can get some black bass and pan fish. (sunnys)

Theo... Just because Rad and I are in the same boat paddling up stream against a bunch of local Yahoo's doesn't mean you don't have to enlighten me on what you meant by waterproofing???

Airwreck,
Yeah the pipe would be illegal, just a escape valve for you, plus, since you are going to be raising fish you might want to drain the bad water from the bottom and take advantage of the fresh rain water to refill.
My spillway is only 18" wide at the bottom and a little over a foot deep, so it could easily be incorporated into a driveway.

"How long after your completion was the last photo taken??" Ha Ha, I am still working on it, 2 years and 2 months. The hole was finished in a week, the first full was 9 months later. All of the stuff in the last picture is several feet taller now.

Bougainvillea, at least here, are a dry season grower, those 2 in the picture are unusual they grow almost year round. They are about 18 months old. I planted them on 3 sides intending to create a natural fence, but none reached more than shrub status. I do have some beautiful bougainvillea, but small.

We also have red clay in our area, mine is just the regular light brown junk. It is the same as your's in that it is rock hard or knee deep. My good soil comes from years of rice growing.

My tilapia are 3 years old today and I caught a 9 pounder a couple of weeks ago. So they are a good choice, they do taste pretty rank if you don't feed them though, the algae they eat taints the taste if that is their complete diet.

I was trying to see if me understanding of the "Thai way" matches Rad's experience. I have a friend who worked for 7 years in Thailand; he says whenever anything bad happened there, stuff that Westerners would try to prevent through planning or precautions, the Thai response was acceptance because "There's nothing you can do about it - it's just bad luck."

I was not attempting to make light of your pond situation. Sorry.

Theo,
They are considering nuclear power plants, one in my province, this a place where the thought of an oil change occurs just following the engine seizing up.

Down south it's "You don't understand, that's Thai way" But, they are really nice people once you learn to roll with it.

No offence taken.. ROFL.. The Bajan way is to break everything..or You know we are almost out of this stock.. I guess we better wait until were really out then maybe reorder.. but you still didn't answer the key question.. Explain water proofing?????

OMG build a nuclear plant... have you built a fallout shelter???

I must be fair also Bajan's can be good people . some of them..They have a saying here "Not every skin teeth is a laugh" meaning not every smile means dey be happy..

OH I know this is off topic.. but the Bougainvillea needs to be trimmed or it will start to drape and look scraggly.. and if it doesn't have support to climb it won't get very high.. At least here...that is..but they make one hell of a natural fence and I learnt today they don't like the wind..

Finally met a local here who might just be a wealth of information about making ponds.

Airwreck,
My best shelve stocking story is: we have one "super market" for 500,000 people.
I like coffee and see several packs of ground so buy one. Running out so I go to buy more, there is none. So next time I see coffee I buy it all but notice that there are no filters. Next time buy all filters and all coffee. Next time no coffee and no filters, ask why? can't keep it on the shelf. That was three years ago, the store has not had coffee or filters since. My province is a major Thai coffee grower. It would be akin to you not being able to buy sugar.
We trim our Bougainvillea, it is just that they don't like wet feet.
I am going to guess that a rain filled pond is going to go through some severe water level changes. I have a very small pond that does that and I am going to plant some trees on the uphill side to reduce the sun's impact, looking at your pictures it looks like you could plant on the uphill sides and cover some of your water. There will be a trade off, evaporation versus tree drinking. If you are as close to my conditions as I think then the shade is the best pick. My trees root very close to the surface, so while they will dig for water they will most likely do the Thai thing and go dormant if it's too much trouble.

Okay. (Forgive me for being doubly distracted on this thread - travelogueing plus the normal off-topic tangents.)

If you have an ample supply of good clay, you will want to apply and compact at least a foot of it (two feet thick is better) to any non-clay portions of the pond basin and dam. "Good" clay compacts to become very impervious to water seepage; one rule of thumb test is to squeeze a fistful of the suspect soil when damp - clay will hold together after squeezing, leakier soils tend to fall back apart (think sand as a worst case and you'll understand the fundamental difference).

All this is explained much better and in more depth in Lusk's "Perfect Pond: Want One?" book, which is the best money anyone considering or building a pond can spend.

Rad,

Don't get me going about not having sugar here.. you can go to the store and NOT find it.. like your coffee its silly.. our problem is we export it all.. and then have to buy more expensive Guyana sugar.. GO figure.. LOL.. what the problem is the Gov't made a commitment to the EU to sell sugar.. Fine.. that's a good idea.. but NOOOO they add a quota.. so the island doesn't make it.. and ALL the sugar get shipped off to Europe leaving the locals with none. To add insult to injury the Gov't get penalized for not making quota. WE could go on for years about our little dramas that make 3rd world living so much fun..
Understand about not wanting to get feet wet..:-x
I like the idea about shade trees..the wife is growing a Money Pod tree which is a canopy rain forest tree.. and it would make a really nice shade block..and it grows faster than weeds..

Getting back to topic..LOL.. you mentioned a drive over runoff spillway.. Are you talking about laying a culvert and covering with rock then building the driveway on top???
My concern with that is fish can be so stupid.. I grown Tropical aquatic plants.. and have that kind of overflow in the plant tanks.. and I keep finding fish in the filter.. these TSTL (To Stupid To Live) fish play chicken with the water run off and loose more times then naught.. So when the big rains come.. I can just see me running around the cane field collection the suicidal fish..How solve???

Theo,
No Need for the apology.. I can understand.. you 1st Worlders..get so distracted by such simple pleasures..ROFL..

Thanks for the info on the water proofing.. it helps YEAH YEAH

Yeah I was thinking about buying that book ..IMHO I saw that PondBoss wanted to Gouge international shipping..I know that from the US Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelope is 11.00 for 4 lbs or less and to charge 25.00 shipping is a little extreme. and I doubt that this book is a coffee table book.. it's probably no bigger then 9x12.. That's my wank.. I sure would like to know some more about the contents.. there is SUCH a big difference between Temperate and Tropical climates that everyday I learn something new it contradicts what I knew would work in Temperate climate that won't work here..

Since that book's almost all about pond planning and construction (as opposed to fish management), it should be pretty climate-independent.

Airwreck,
I was thinking more of a spot in the dam that was just lower than the rest, shallow enough to drive through and deep and wide(long) enough to evacuate the amount of overflow. Culvert would work just a little more work and expense. Mine is 6 or so feet wide and drains into a 6" pipe in the back, the back is also lower than the sides in case of a really big rain.


I lose fish all of the time, most, usually as the waters first goes over the spillways edge, most are small couple of weeks old. The tilapia reproduce rapidly enough to cover any of the loses. Trying to prevent lose might cause more harm than good as debris can clog your spillway.

What is being said about waterproofing a pond with clay is actually to use clay to line the pond bottom with. Since your clay is so tight, it would be a good material to line the pond bottom. Excavate the pond, line the bottom with good, tight clay, like a bowl. Whereever you designate the the "rim" of the bowl, use the porous, sandy soil. If you excavate well below natural ground level and replace the existing soils with water, you can have a nice pond. For an escape route, why not build a french drain for water to flow to the next spot it would have gone anyway? That's what currently happens naturally. This land has a natural french drain of sandy soil where water seeps downward to a clay layer, then runs laterally to escape. Always remember this...water leaves. It ALWAYS leaves. It has to, especially when you have excess. With 52 inches of rain annually, you will have excess. There is an escape route. Find out how the water leaves now and duplicate it.
Regarding the cost of my book...it's not my intent to defend our charges. If you want to buy it, let me know and I'll have Kathy send one to you and charge whatever the postage is. On the website, I told her years ago to find out what it would cost to send these products the furthest distance and put that up there. It may only cost $11 to ship to Barbados, but it's twice that much to other parts of the world. We don't gouge anyone. Of course, being the author of such a fine piece of literary work jammed packed with more information than another book like it, the cocky part of me wants to bow out my chest and tell you that you will save thousands of dollars by being able to use what you learn in that book...but I won't. (tongue firmly in cheek).
It's refreshing to hear of your project. I would love to hear your entire story. It would make great reading in our favorite pond magazine.
All the best.....

Mr Lusk,

I want to thank you and give you my humblest apology... I guess you got a tad bit of the frustration my wife and I have been experiencing.. Many sellers on the net have been taking advantage of the International buyer.. We have ordered many things.. and have been told one postage price.. and when it arrives.. it is like 1/3 the cost.. I could name many vendors site chapter and verse.. but I do not want to start name calling..the biggest type of offense was to say they were sending it First class mail.. and it then arrives surface mail.. Then in May when the USPS restructured international mail. We had to become keenly aware of what postage cost were.. due to the fact they eliminated surface mail and sky rocketed First class mail. Many people do not know about the Flat rate service so we have to educate them.. So plse accept my apology..I was not intending to offend..

Yes I would want a copy of the book.. cuz the more I get involved with this the more it looks like I am going to have to do this undertaking myself as the contractor.. we recently got a bid from one contractor for doing a gravel driveway he wanted 11,000 dollars BDS.. 2 BDS = 1 USD made a call the to the quarry.. cost of the stone.. with dive and pour delivery.. 3000.00 BDS..

I will be more than happy to share the drama of building this pond with you..and better yet..I will try to twist my wife's arm to write it.. she is a professional writer.. and would do such a better job than me..Grin..

Lastly.. don't be a shy peacock.. be proud...Stick your butt in the air, spread your plumage and strut.. LOL..

Again Plse accept my Humblest apologies.. I'm now off to learn about French drainage