Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam building a easy pond i thought

i started building this pond a few days ago and after the core test i thought it would be relatively easy. its a wildlife management pond with a 48'' riser and 20" steel tube. it will cover approximately 8 acres and contain 10,000 cubic yards in the embankment staked by the nrcs for the wildlife department. after we started the core which a 3' core was called for and is typical here by 12' wide i noticed the scraper pumping the clay at 3 ft deep. this bugged me because fat clay will only absorb 6% over optimum moisture so we dug the core on down and were about 11' deep before we got a spring sealed off. we then cored the whole dam 6' deep making sure there were no more and there wasnt. now trying to build the dam we have found 4 more all 6' or deeper running in veins about 5 to 10 ft wide with a sand gravel mixture they are using to migrate around in the pond bottom. i'm not worried about the pond leaking since i can cut through them and i know they are coming from up hill but they are making life miserable building this pond. we have got to make sure we dont get to much of this sand in the dam and the scraper is having to work its way around the wet spots. i've seen so many questions about springs in ponds i decided to post this pond being built and what we are doing to fix these problems as we encounter them. i hope it may help someone down the road. as you look at the pics notice the dirt in the core compared to the dirt on the back side and front of the dam. we are being very carefull to put clay only in the core and mixing the sand with clay on the front side and backside being more careful with the front than the back side

Excellent post Tim, I look forward to following the progress of this pond.

trying to explain whats happening in the pictures above you'll notice this spring is putting a lot of water in the core. so we are stockpiling clay to the right of the core as you can see. when i dug thru the spring i was 2 ft below the sandy gravel mixture it was using to migrate around with and in firm soil that had no water traveling thru it. the reason for stockpiling the clay was because we had to overcome the water quickly and seal it off so it wouldnt make the clay muddy. we put four 1' lifts of clay in there in about 45 minutes rolling each one in with the scraper. this seems to have sealed the spring off in the core and after removing the rocks from the core on the other side which may have caused a seep we brought the core on up in 1' lifts. will post more pics below of progress the last few days

i dont know how to post pictures where u can just see them without downloading them. the last picture is where i'm stopped at now it had just started raining and dam was getting to slick for my nerves and a scraper. we are getting rain from whats left of a hurracine here in oklahoma. so i wont close that middle up just yet. and notice another spring in the pond bottom and how mixed the dirt is in the pond bottom. its very un consistent and i'll move uphill and make the pond wider before i close the middle up with that stuff

The only way that I know of is to upload them to a Photobucket account or something like that, and then copy a direct link, then use the "enter an image" button in the toolbar.

I've tried doing it the other way and putting it in the image gallery, but I can't seem to do it. If you want to put images that you can see in this thread, the photobucket was is the only way that I know of.

thanks essup i'll try to figure that out. here are a couple pictures of the tube and riser. we allready have the tube welded up so all we have to do is drag it in place and begin covering it with dirt. we will weld the anti seep collars and riser on while we are adding dirt on. this can take a full day and we cant slow down that long. once we plug the middle of the pond we got to get done as quick as possible. we usually cover the pipe then start plugging the middle driving over the dirt covered pipe load after load for compaction.i say dirt it will be good clay from one end to the other of the pipe.

i sometimes leave out a lot and when i look back over my post i feel i have left out quite a bit. i get in a hurry and cant type worth a flip either. anyway i cant stress enough the importance of knowing where these springs are coming from. had we not of dug the spring gravel and sand out of the core i'm sure it would have leaked badly and more than likely you wouldnt have seen any moving water behind the dam it would have been moving about 8 ft undergroung to who knows where and i would have had a mad owner of a leaking pond. so its way better to find and deal with problems at the begining even if it cost you a day or two. i mentioned we found more springs in the pond bottom and they are getting more productive all the time and i believe its because we shut the flow off at the core and its backing water up into the pond bottom. i am continually building new haul roads for the scraper due to soft spots popping up here and there. i have taken the trackhoe to these spots and all are the same with a sand gravel mix about 5 ft underground 5-10 ft wide and 3-4 ft deep. they are all coming from upstream which is good. they look as if they are coming from straight up beneath the earth until you dig them up and see just whats going on. there is 4-5 ft of very good clay on top of all this underground activity which almost fooled me on the core. if you go upstream from the pond dam 1/2 mile its about a 400 ft change in elevation. we have fixed several ponds over the years that were spring fed and leaking in this area. none showed any evidence of water moving behind the dam and the owners had came to the conclusion that that the water pressure in the pond was forcing the water to somewhere in the earth which would be true if the beginning of the spring was located in the pond bottom but in every case it was escaping under the core. evidently the contractor didnt core deep enough probably because he never seen the need to just as i almost did here. but even if i didnt get it in the beginnig once i seen these springs in the pond bottom i'd been back at the core digging deeper looking for where they traveled beneath the dam. because if they are not surfacing they are going downhill somewhere.

Tim, it's contractors like you that care about their work, and take pride in what they are doing that all of us PondMeisters would love to find when it comes time to build our ponds.

Tim, I know where your coming from. We deal with a lot of limestone around here. Which can play a lot of tricks on You if your not careful, or even if you are careful. I do a lot of water witching trying to track underground water so I have a good idea where the water might be when I'm digging the core, if it's not obvious. Sometimes You don't know if your going another foot or ten more feet.

Tim,

You've laid out a lot of great info for future pond builders. One of the most critical things a pondmeister needs to do is due diligence on the quality of work that the contractor has done in the past.

We had a similar situation with one of our larger ponds. The contractor had started at one end of the 700ft long dam and was digging the core down into solid clay. At the start it was 2-3 ft down, but when we got into the bottomland it was 10-12 ft down. When we got to the creek channel he noted more large boulders and got them dug out and into what appeared to be solid clay. Instead of going a couple feet down into this solid clay, he went down a few feet farther, and found another layer of gravel and rock. He dug this out and got into solid clay below. By that time he was 16-17 ft down, and the sidewalls were collapsing about as fast as he could dig stuff out. They were pushing clay in right behind the excavator and packing it with a dozer to make sure they got a solid core trench. If he hadn't done this, we wouldn't have the 25 ft of water depth in the pond, probably more like 5 ft. Contractor was Steve Bunkers of Dell Rapids, SD.

Bill

i have thought about and tried to witch the water but just cant seem to get the hang of it. i can see where that would be a great help. and i highly agree with bill and essup its very hard here to find a good HONEST contractor. most of them around here stear clear of nrcs ponds because they get checked on their work.if you got one like bill does take care of him.

i had a lot of help over the years getting to the level of knowledge i'm at now. and i have a ways to go yet. i got hooked up about 15yrs ago with a fellow that had built over 2,000 ponds for the nrcs. he said back then he lived in a camper and moved from pond to pond and that the nrcs man was with them all the time checking compaction and resetting the front and back toe flags about every 3 ft up.he still uses the same dozer a 1961 d7-17a with 68,000 documented hours. its still an impressive machine that will run day after day. he retired a year ago due to his wifes health but cant go a full week without seeing what i'm doing. as far as getting compaction with a dozer he knows techniques that are impressive which i could write and write about if anyone ever wants to know. he said they figured out how to do this stuff with the nrcs man taking compaction test every lift at every pond. he took me to new levels of pond building experience quickly.
i have no new pictures its still raining here but hope to soon and thanks for all the responses.

Tim:

A guy from work showed me how to witch electric lines or pipes with 2 coathangers. He did it, then he had me do it. Talk about eerie! But, I have yet to try it for water.

i tried peach tree limbs and willow limbs the guy trying to teach me said he could tell you about how deep youd have to drill to get a water well. i would watch him do it and the limbs would role the skin in his hands to the point he couldnt hold them. i thought it was pretty neat i just couldnt get it to work for me but we were right beside a main roadway and i felt kinda funny gettin in that little chicken stance and walkin with sticks in my hand i might need a little more private place to do my schoolin. about the third honk i was done

I'll share a real eerie witching story with you. I was out looking at this guy's pond a few years ago, with my witching tools of choice (two cooper rods). The guy told me a story of when him and his wife were on vacation they came across some folks that were hired to find graves by witching.They told him how it worked, well as it goes when you go over a grave with a man in grave the rod will point to his head, on a woman her feet, and someone that has been through a voilent death one of the rods will spin. Being curious like a cat I had to try it. There is truth to it, creepy!

Back to the pond side of it. Witching works great on a pond I've tracked leaks running around dams, tracked springs and as esshup mentioned pipes and all sorts of stuff.

3 inches of rain today. i call them sweet drops of starvation. so i just got a picture of water running through the middle after i cut the middle down 3 ft to get rid of all the water. i also took a picture of the wood chopper that was used to clear 43,000 acres of land my d6 wont budge it and it labors a d9 pretty good i think they are gonna sell it for scrap so i just wanted a picture of it. it has been setting there since about 1983.

to track a leak would be like a miracle i could really see the benefit to that
. i exhumed 5 indian graves doing a church pad. the graveyard was never platted so no one new about them it bugs me to this day to some extent i'm spooky anyway

You can track a leak! I've done it. If you walk over a dam that was not constructed properly those jokers will cross the length of the dam most of the time.

I had a friend ran across some indian graves digging one time. I saw the pictures that was enough for me.

what dimension of copper rods due u use and how do you hold them

Jeez O Pete Tim, how big is that wood chopper? I take it that it's solid steel?

The guy that showed me used wire from two coat hangers. Imagine the "L" shape. The longer part was about 12" long, the short end about 4" long. Make a fist, and hold the short end in your hand as loose as possible, with the long ends pointed straight forward. Walk slowly and when the two wires cross together, that's where the pipe or wire is.

That's exactly how I do it.

I would have to measure to see exactly what my set up is, I believe it's about the same as esshup was saying.

thanks i'm sure gonna try it i cant tell you how many ponds i've tried to fix for people that showed water moving at the low spot in the back toe but when you dig in it starts going right or left by the time i chase it down i have a mess. sure would be nice to trace the leak down before you started digging

essup its about 18' wide and 8' tall and is full of water or antifreeze. i was about 18 when i got to watch it work it would chop a 24'' round tree into firewood and could clear up to 100 acres a day. only problem was i think it seeded them acorns the trees came back twice as thick. they are now spiking about 3000 acres a year to try and get rid of them. there are still ruts going down hills where he couldnt stop the d9 while pulling it. i dont envy the job he had at all

WOW! Not counting the steel in it, the water alone weighed around 56,500#!

You pull that friggin thing?

What happens while braking going downhill?