Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations sediment pond/area

not sure if this is posted in the right forum or not, but here it goes. my pond catches a LOT of rain runoff. the pond is only about 1 year old and i can already tell that the upper end is started to silt in. i have heard of people having sediment ponds above their pond to help reduce this. i cant dig a pond above my pond due to mine starts on the property line. i was curious if i could dig really deep down the first 20 feet or so and maybe that area would be more apt to catch the silt that flows in? any thoughts?

i simply gave up some pond area, and constructed a porous dam to form an upstream sediment basin. it has worked perfect.









the idea is then every few years, you just have to dig out the small upstream basin. if you do this, make sure to survey in the top of sediment dam so its slightly lower than your main spillway.

edit......here's a couple when it has water and in action.....

thanks a million. those are good pictures and ideas. my pond really necks down narrow the last 40 feet. i wouldnt have anything as large as yours, but the concept would be the same.

what you see there is about 75ft long and ~8 feet high in the center. we surveyed in the middle about 1 foot below the spillway elevation just to make sure nothing backed up and caused problems. the rock was dug out of the upper part of pond, and filters the water nicely in addition to slowing it down. a soil dam could work too if thats what you have on the property. i havent used my sediment basin for any other purpose, but for you or anybody else, it could make a nice separate minnow or grow out area if you can keep water in it all summer.