Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Excavating a New Pond in Sand

I have been lurking on this great site for a while, and have an oddball pond project that will benefit greatly from all of the expertise on the forum.

I'll gladly take any advice you guys have to offer, because I suspect I will end up pulling a junior "Brettski" on this project.

A picture is definitely worth a 1,000 words. I was too stupid to take any pictures for you guys while I was surveying, so all I have is the 1,000 words. If anyone wants to give advice on this project (after my long, boring introduction), I will go get some pictures and post them.

We recently purchased 300 acres in central Kansas. There is a great creek on our land that runs all year. It typically is 5-8 feet across and flows 1" to 8" deep depending on recent rains. The water is very clear, even after big rain events, because the watershed is sandy soil - most of the water comes in through a "sand filter" rather than as direct run-off.

Seemingly, this would be the perfect "fish factory". Unfortunately, the watershed for my itty-bitty creek is over 30,000 acres. When it rains hard, the creek quickly crests way out of its banks, and then subsides in only a few hours.

I still thought I had the perfect dam site. I had a bluff about 15 feet above the water level on one side and an 8 foot ridge on the other side that went flat out into the field several hundred feet for the "mother of all emergency spillways." A nice 12 foot dam (5' of freeboard) would have been perfect.

Unfortunately, I just finished my surveying. The contours of the land were deceptive. If I impound water 7 feet deep at the dam, I still don't get any surface acres of pond. All I manage to do is fill the creek channel and get some very shallow water in a few depressions. I can't make the dam any bigger, I would start impounding water under the bridge for the county road.

I now have to switch to Plan "B", and this is where I need your help.

Instead of spending money on a good, big dam, I think I can build a small dam just in the creek channel with maybe 2 feet of freeboard. I can rock the entire front face of the dam, or maybe use gabion baskets. The entire area on either side of the dam will be the emergency spillway, and will require some erosion control. This project should impound water in the creek channel about 5 feet deep at the dam, and get progressively shallower to 0 feet at the property line a half-mile away.

I would then have approximately 12 acres of flat land only 1-3 feet above water-level. This land is mostly clean coarse sand that has been deposited as alluvium as the stream-bed has meandered across my mini-valley. The sand layer appears to be 5-8 feet thick. In places it lies on a clay layer. I can't see the base in the other creek scours.

I am looking at this as a long-term project. I start by digging a 1-2 acre side pond out of one of the creek banks. Dig it 6-8 feet deep and landscape it enough to make the kids and "she who must be obeyed" happy. The next summer, take the kids out to play while I work on the next side pond (or expanding a previous pond).

I can't afford to have a contractor excavate 12 acres of pond, but I could certainly afford the most appropriate "tool" for the job. I could work week-ends and some extra days in the summers and have the contractor use his equipment for the parts I couldn't finish off right.

After ripping out a few trees, I would mostly be moving loose sand. I plan on building some interesting weirs several feet above the floodplain to keep the big water flows from washing out my side ponds.

My first big question is for the dirt-movers on the forum. What is the best excavating equipment for moving loose sand when you are also sitting in the sand. Most of my moves would only be 200-400 feet for a dozer slot for example.

Does a dozer work, or would I do better with a loader? If a loader is better, would a wheel-loader with 4-wheel drive do better in the sand than a track-loader?

I think this sand will be really loose after I get through the sparse trees and grass/weeds that are established. Would a small scaper be the best way to excavate the pond?

I was planning to test this project during the driest portion of this fall. The first step (on paper) was to build a small coffer dam across the creek. My local contractor could then dig a "sump" in the creek about 12 feet deep. I was then going to rent the biggest trash pump I could find and try to pump out the creek and throw the water downstream over the coffer dam.

If it is possible to pump out the creek, then I should be able to excavate sand to form a 6-8 foot deep pond. (I am calling the usual base water level in the creek 5 feet "below ground".) This would involve moving some sand that is 1-3 feet below the current stream water level. If I cannot pump out the creek, this pond excavation project would involve moving sand that is underwater or at least water-saturated.

I assume this can be done on a small scale with a track hoe. Could you dig an entire small pond with a track hoe if your excavation was in water 3 feet deep? There are still some old draglines around. Would this be the best piece of equipment to own to dig loose sand both above and below water level?

Thanks to anyone that chooses to help advise on this project. This project is a little different from the usual pond design, so I need all of the help I can get.

I suspect I will be doing a lot of "measure twice and cut once" on this project. I really believe I will save a lot of time, money, and headaches, if I "measure" -- post on Pond Boss for advice -- "cut" -- then post again on how the cut did not quite go as planned -- then "cut" again a better way after taking the advice of the forum crowd.

Thanks,
Rod

Really a tough question to answer without standing there and taking it all in first hand, but I will give a few opinions from the work I have done building my ponds and operating heavy equipment for a living.

If you are moving wet material leave the dozer parked. The dozer pushes less material up hill to begin with, even less when wet. I tried that in the beginning with my pond and it is a great way to move a little material at a time, or get stuck with a blade full in front of you, not a fun day of digging.

You talk about a loader, which would work but wouldn't be the best choice as it carrys small loads and is traditionally heavier than a dozer, making it more prone to get stuck in the wet areas.

If your going to buy or rent a machine to build a pond in wet material, an excavator and dump truck in tandem will do more work than most anything else. Even in dry material, it will allow you to dig the deep end, where the water between workdays will end up, and keep the rest of your dig dry enough to work. This combo also allows you to haul and dump material right where you need it to build the dam or structure, or just plain old spoil piles. You can dig and haul stumps easily, add rocks to the pond with ease, and most times if you pay attention to the material you are sitting on, you will have a hard time getting it stuck.

That is my opinion. I used a 315 Cat excavator with a 6 wheel drive off road dump truck and we moved over 3000 yards of wet, sticky, stinky material out of my 1 acre pond in 10 hours time. I have a D6 cat that we used to pull the truck out when it got stuck, and it did, but we were in mud on top of clay and once those two are damp, it's like a waterslide. The point is, don't be afraid to rent a good piece or two and get the lions share of your work done in a short time, you won't regret it. Good luck on your project.

Hi FishingRod,

The experts will chime in on this. Until they do, I'll bump it up and put in my .02.

Maybe I'm on the cautious side, but the large creek sounds a bit risky. Any dam you build would be in jeopardy of washing out, even if you haul in suitable clay. A hole excavated in the creek bed would work better, but you would have no control on the choice of fish in your pond. If that's OK with you, you would still have to deal with the pond quickly silting (or in your case "sanding" in). It's doable, but high maintenance and risky. My guess is that you would be worrying and fighting sand forever.

I think I would try to build the pond mostly out of the flood plain of the creek. You could dig a small diversion channel, raceway, or lay a pipe to fill the pond. That way you can control the inflow, silting, and the fish. Of course that would depend on the creek bed elevation, and elevation of the pond site. If the creek bed is in a small valley, you don't have much choice.

About pumping out the creek:

It's doable with 2 or 3 3" trash pumps or 1 honking big one (whichever is cheaper), but probably less headache to simply divert the creek. Just dig a temporary channel around your work area, and dam the original creek until finished. You have to be mindful of laws concerning your neighbors downstream, if applicable.

Digging wet sand is no problem. It actually behaves better than dry sand.

Good luck!

Joe,

Thanks for the help. When I think "build a pond" I think dozer. However, I couldn't figure out how I could do my project with a dozer or loader. Your plan sounds very efficient.

If I did my math right, you dug out the equivalent of your full 1 acre pond to a depth of 1.9 feet in only 10 hours. I had no idea it was possible to excavate that quickly.

Do you have time for a few excavator questions?

The Cat 315 looks to be about 115 hp and 38,000 lbs. Is 48" the largest bucket for this size excavator? I believe the rated digging depth is 21 feet. Can you get that deep in practice?

In my limited experience, the biggest piece of construction equipment that you can readily get on site is usually the best bang for your buck. I would be a total rookie operating on a rental excavator. Does the size matter on your learning curve? What size would you recommend to start? How much would you de-rate a rookie (after say 3 days of seat time) compared to an experienced operator?

Did you dig that fast with only one dump truck? If so, what do you do on the excavator while the truck driver is going to your spoils pile?

Thanks for your advice. I will take some pictures next trip to help give a better idea of the lay of the land.

Bobad,

Thanks for the advice. My kind of pond guy -- already planning how to take care of the fish!

The sand in the valley is so permeable, that if you dig a hole, it will quickly fill with water to the level of the stream.

My idea is right on with yours. I could dig a pond anywhere in the valley and the stream would fill it without even being connected. I still want to try a small "armor-plated" dam in the stream channel. If I gain 5 feet of water level this way, then that is 5 feet less I need to excavate for the floors of my ponds.

I am worried about building the core trench for my stream-channel dam in saturated soil. We have major rivers in Kansas that sometimes go dry at the surface. It just looks like a channel 300 feet across that is full of sand. However, the water is still flowing slowly through the sand. The water pops back out to the surface when you get 10 or 20 more miles downstream.

I fear my little creek is a miniature model of this phenomenon. I know a trash pump can handle all of the stream flow during a dry season. However, I don't know how much flow I have under the sand. I need to briefly get rid of this water saturating the sand to build the core trench in my dam so that it is deeper than the lowest level of sand in my valley.

I do have two 1/2 acre excavated ponds on the land up out of the stream valley. They are in horrible shape and only hold water about a foot deep. I was planning on expanding one to 3/4 - 1 acre. The other could be re-designed and re-built to maybe 2 - 3 acres. These would hopefully be the main fish ponds that I could control.

Rod,

A good bit of my pond was nearly excavated when I bit the bullet and rented the machinery. I own a Bucyrus Erie 22B dragline and a Cat D6 dozer, as well as a D4 with a small pull pan, but the amount and type of material I had to deal with made progress slow. I had been digging a little at a time with my own equipment for a while, the big trouble was I could generate more spoil than the dozers could handle, thus creating a bottleneck.

I had operator friends who committed their time so I rented the machinery. I built haul roads down into the pond with my D6 to avoid double handling the material saving even more time. I guess I should say the 10 hours was clock time on the truck and we put it on over a day and a half, shutting the truck off to load it. Our round trip time was very short although I don't have any records of the actual time. The man in the excavator usually cleaned up the area and repositioned the machine to load the next load while the truck was gone. We dug our way out and finished the grade as well. I didn't get super fussy about a smooth compacted bottom as it will settle once full of water anyway. I had one truck running most of the time. Before the large truck we had two dumps running that were smaller than this one, and they couldn't hold a candle to the amount of material we moved with just the large truck so we parked them. They also were not as mobile as this 6x6 was.

As far as the rookie question goes, it's tough to say, some folks take to it like a fish to water, others take more time. The key to it all is to find a rhythm and stay in it. A little secret, the machine can only go so fast, you will reach a point where you are as quick as anyone else. The machine is not hard to run, just respect it, it can hurt people quickly. Most people can be pretty capable of loading a truck in a few hours time, not the prettiest or smoothest maybe, but the truck will get loaded. Just to throw a figure out for budgeting time and money I may say that for a rough estimate you could figure it would take you 50% longer to do it, then if you were faster you would be money ahead.
Digging 21 feet is possible, not always practical, you would have to slope the sides to eliminate caving in, if possible the best bet is to dig in layers to reach your final depth.

I'm not sure what the biggest bucket is on a 315, that sounds about right though. The main thing is to have a plan and stick to it as best you can. The hardest part of it all is communicating to others what you see as the finished product. It is very possible to dig deeper and make twice the material to handle if the plan is not adhered to. I hope that answers more of your questions.

Joe,

Thanks for all of the help in your replies.

I think all of the old farm ponds in Kansas were excavated with draglines. However, now I only hear about draglines being used in huge mines. Why couldn't you use yours for moving muck? Is the modern excavator just a much better tool?

Thanks for the depth advice on the excavator. I did not want to go to 21 feet. I just wanted to know if I got a smaller excavator rated to 14 feet, could I effectively dig out to 10 feet.

May I private message you about bottle-neck questions, etc., when I have planned the project better and finally get going? I am not sure I can even get started this fall. The project involves damming a small creek, so I have to get a species impact review finished along with all of the other paperwork.

You can PM me anytime you wish about anything you wish. My advice is based on my experience up here in PA, some may be helpful or not applicable to your region so keep that in mind.

The dragline is a very effective tool for moving muck, I have a clam bucket for it as well. The main problem is it is much more cumbersome to move around and set up than an excavator, which means time wasted. The other thing is, I am the only one here that will run the old girl, so that limits me to only doing that portion of the project. I'm no foreman but I was paying the fuel and rental bills, and it is my pond so I opted to get a machine I could put other operators in and keep me moving to manage the whole operation, and fill in whenever someone needed a break. I had dug a lot but the main portion of my pond was dug with help from friends of mine who are heavy equipment operators for a living.

Pond Boss working at it's best, members helping members. Ya gotta love this place!

I will post some pictures of the ordeal that was my pond excavation as soon as I get them off the wifes digi camera. She has video of us digging as well so that will be fun to watch someday.

As far as the members helping members thing, I doubt I will ever be able to give back as much as I have gotten from this site, but I can keep trying.

FishinRod...what part of Kansas are you in? I live North of Hutchinson in the sand hills.

Mike,

I live in Wichita, but my land is just northeast of Kingman. We have a 1/2 mile of Smoots Creek on the property.

Do you have any good posts about building ponds in your area? I will do a search, but any juicy links would be appreciated.

Mike,

After searching, I found your thread about your pond draining accross your neighbor's land. I read that thread at the time and hoped you could work it out. The thread died, but did you resolve the problem?