Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? stopping silt from runoff

hello, I live on an 30+ year old pond, we added aeration last year & have seen an improvement in water clarity.
During heavy rains you can see the silt runoff enter the pond. there is a ditch system that meanders through some homes that channel water runoff from a neighboring horse farm. any ideas on what could be done to stop the silt? the people who live next to the ditches would be a problem for any major project to stop the silt. I thought about a fence cage filled with gravel placed in the ditch. any ideas?

Pullo,

I'm at work right now, but when I get to my own computer later tonight or tomorrow night, I'll post some photos and descriptions of the things I've done. Over about a three year period I cut my silt infiltration and nutrient inflow from something that was appalling, to almost none. The water that now flows into my pond, even during heavy rains, looks like it could be coming out of a municipal water treatment facility. I think I may have actually overachieved, as this is the second year in a row where my water has almost unlimited visibility. I may actually have to start fertilizing.

Ken

Thank you catmandoo, I look forward to see what you have done. thanks again.

I'll have to check this out too! I'd like to stop leaves, clay runoff, and some sand. I think I need a combination of a settling mini pond and a strip of bog plants.

I didn't get home till almost 10:00 PM. Now, I can't find my photo collection of what I've done to the pond.

So, I'll start, and try to get photos posted in a couple of days.

Some things I did:

1. I stopped a major erosion area above the pond. When we moved in six summers ago, there was about a 3-foot deep ravine that directly fed the pond. It came from a large pasture on an adjoining property. The combination brought in lots of mud and lots of organic material (manure tea). The first thing I did was fill in the ravine. I actually tried to crest the old ravine -- that never has quite worked. It took a lot of rework. I placed rows of big rocks across everywhere water moved fast down this area. I then placed lots of organic material, like straw and leaves behind the rocks. I kept reseeding it with everything I could -- winter rye, peas, grass seed, clover. It took a couple of years, but this area eventually filled in, and is no longer a problem.

2. I created two minor wetlands. The area described above entered the pond over a wide low area about 50 x 50. It was bare when we started. I scraped it out with a rear blade on my tractor, and turned it into a shallow bowl that was several inches lower than full pool of the pond. I then started dumping large amounts of organic material into this bowl. It stayed wet most of the year. I regularly added many kinds of seeds, and always adding more organic material, like clippings, leaves, and straw. It eventually turned into a nice marshy area that really filters water coming down from the neighboring pasture. It now gets brushhogged once a year when I can actually drive the tractor over it.

The second wetland is still a work in progress. So far, I've only added several rows of rocks to slow water coming down what becomes a stream when it rains hard or for long periods. I plan to dig it out and turn it into a small pond area where fry and fingerlings can hide from their bigger and hungrier cousins.

3. I created two settling ponds in another area that includes a wet-season/heavy-rain stream that flows about 1000 feet through the woods. During heavy rains, this area sends a lot of water into the pond. Previously, it washed massive amounts of silt and leaves into the pond. The first settling pond is about 15-20 feet above the pond. It is small -- maybe 8-ft diameter, and one foot deep. It feeds the pond through a culvert. This little pond entrance and exit are filtered with piles of large rocks. I'll get pictures. But it really collects a lot of junk. About 150 feet above that is a bigger settling pond that really collects a lot of junk, and it really slows down the water. It is about 25-ft in diameter, and about 6-foot deep -- in the early autumn. I clean both settling ponds out in late August or early September when it is dry, and the leaves haven't started to fall. The bigger settling pond gathers 2-3 feet of silt and debris that I pull up into the woods with a landscape rake. The smaller pond gathers about a foot of junk that I pull out with the rake or with my front-end loader.

4. I divert a lot of water. I have diverted muddy water that comes down the dirt road that passes by my pond -- and provides access to the pond. I have slowly shaped it, and I've dug ditches, so that this water goes down through a field behind the dam. It gets cleaned going through the field before it meets up with the pond output. This too is a work in progress. It takes regular maintenance, as the ditches keep filling up. Eventually, I'll get enough plantings to keep it from eroding as fast.

5. I don't mow any closer than about 12 inches to the edge of the pond. I keep that area high, and trim it with a weed whacker. It collects silt and junk, slows erosion, and gives the frogs a place to hide. Here is a post I made last year about how I trim around the pond: Pond Edge Mowing

6. I try to keep heavy vegetative growth around the perimeter of the pond. Some of that can be seen in the above link. I mow at about 5-inch height. I only bushhog once a year in the areas where lots of water flow through to the pond.

7. I've removed nearly all of the trees within 20 feet of the pond edge to keep leaves out of the pond. More to be removed, but not until the earth is well stabilized.

I'll try to post more later in the week.

Ken

Thanks catmandoo, sounds like quite the project. Do you have any pics you could show? I like what you did with the ditch, does it fill in quick with silt?

Interesting Ken, I didn't realize that you have done all that work at your pond. Have you discussed this before on PB?

I've just mentioned it in passing. It all started with a "Mongo Pond" after our good friend Dave Sefton gave a talk at one of the Pond Boss conferences about digging small watering holes for the critters. I'm down at my work condo, and I don't have access to all my photos. I think I've got good photos of what I've done. If not, I'll try to get photos this weekend to post.

Ken

This is a feature article waiting to be born....impressive project Ken. We need to share your solution with the PB nation.

Anbody have pics on what they installed in a ditch that feeds a pond to stop silt?

Pullo,

I have to apologize for not getting photos. My job doesn't let me get home very often anymore. This past weekend was such a wonderful weekend with friends and family, I just never got to getting new photos.

I've got some photos from last winter, they just don't show things as well as they could. The grass is covered over with snow.

Water, mud, and lots of leaves and leaf mold flowed into the pond every time it rained when we first bought this pond.

One of my early actions was to install a 12-inch culvert to help control this inflow. I dug out a small bowl shaped hole in the seasonal creek -- about 8-foot diameter, and about a foot deeper than the pond level. I installed the culvert, and filled around the culvert with big rocks, smaller rocks, gravel, and then soil. I covered the whole thing with a few more inches of good soil. I got grass growing over the top of the culvert.

At the entrance to the culvert I used some old fencing to hold out big items. Behind the fencing, I placed a bunch of rocks that were 5-10 inches in diameter. On the top side of this little pond, I built a small rock wall across the creek where it entered my little settling pond. Leaves collect in the little holding pond and behind the upper rock wall. I remove them once a year. This setup collects about 99% if the leaves coming down the mountain. The little pond slows the flow considerably, so silt settles out unless the water goes over the culvert. I leave the grass cut fairly high over the 16-foot culvert. The grass collects a lot of the silt, and just makes the grass grow even better.

End of culvert that flows into main pond:


Here is the little settling pond. Near the bottom of the photo, you can see the fence "filter" and the rocks behind it. At the top of the picture you can see the rock wall that stops most of the leaves and leaf mold. Since this little pond holds about 18 inches of water before going over the top, the water stays in here long enough to take out a lot of the heavier particles in the water.



Tomorrow night I'll try to post the upper settling pond, which is about 20-25 feet in diameter and about six foot deep.

Ken