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I will try to tell my tale. Bought a property in Lawrence Co, Indiana with some acreage for a retirement place. The house needed work and it had no pond. Both of those can be fixed. That area gets a good amount of rain/snow and there is a lovely wooded ravine begging for a dam. I asked around and found the consensus among pond owners that one gent was the master dam-builder in the area. We spoke and looked at the site. This is a very rural area and he'd played in that ravine as a kid as relatives are next door.. well, I'm practically in the clan now. He sounded much more knowledgeable than I, though as a mechanical engineer, I have some of the fundamentals. He described significant water flow events and the need to have a solid core, lots of freeboard, good overflow & spillway capability, a valved drain line under the dam with collars, and such. It sounded like he was on top of the game, so we shook hands.

I spent the entire summer logging that ravine, me and my chainsaw. They wanted all the trees down, above the waterline and below the dam. I dropped trees, cut them up and half-filled my barn to the roof. It will be about 1 acre and 14-15' deep by the dam.


Clearing out the draw

The last of Sept, he brought in his ace dozer man (70+ yrs old and lots of dams under his belt) and he ran a track hoe (excavator). They spent 2 weeks building the dam. They took out every stump and scraped down to solid rock. They declared the soapstone to be a good solid base that won't leak.





The sides are fairly steep, some is bare rock, some soil. They took soil from the ravine, and then had to go out to the sides of the dam to get more.


They put the 2" PVC drain line in when they started, along with collars on either side of the core. I couldn't say how thick the layers were they built the core with- and it appeared they compacted it with the dozer. The drain was fed by a 7' vertical section of pipe that had been drilled with small holes both inside a rock-filled barrel and to the top above the barrel.



You can see the drain arrangement standing in the bottom of the pond when the dam was almost done. And that is a lovely cherry tree I dropped and took out when they told me the roots would be under water.

Note there is no overflow pipe at this point. They said they would put that in with the track hoe, but then they blew a hydraulic cylinder on it. They said they would put the pipe in with the dozer. I wasn't there, so I don't know how they did it.



This is the dry side of the dam at full height, before the overflow went in.

Next time I saw it, it had rained 4" that weekend. There was 7'+ of water. That was scarey.


One weekend's rain in the pond.

I had some good email chats with Esshup and decided to stock fatheads and gold shiners and give them a year to do the fishy thing. I will put in bluegill, redears and LMB in a year.

I had fun building habitat up in what would be the shallows. I did PVC structures, slate nooks, pallets with rocks piled on top, etc.

So it filled gradually through to December. Before Christmas, it lacked about 3 1/2 feet to the overflow. It was going to snow and go cold. It froze over completely in one day- but then it got down to -14F that night.


Nice snow, the day before it froze over.

After Christmas, I got a call from a neighbor. It had rained hard again. "The overflow pipe is down in your field below the dam and there's a huge hole." Needless to say, I took a quick trip down to check on it. What I saw about made me cry.


50' long (12" dia) overflow pipe is 30' downstream

My pond man saw that two pallets were lodged in the hole in the dam. They'd gotten washed out from the top of the pond. (Should have attached the rocks or blocks so they wouldn't float) He declared the pallets blocked the overflow pipe, the water swirled around the entrance, and caused the pipe to come out.


Still water, but big hole in dam

Now as I see it, even if the pallets got to the pipe before it failed, it shouldn't make a pipe wash out. The water never got anywhere near the emergency spillway (far side of the dam in view above), you could tell from the leaves how far it got. It looks like the overflow pipe washed out pretty much as soon as water got flowing through it. There was a large water outflow, the newly sprouted rye grass, oats, and winter wheat were flattened but still rooted along most of the back side of the dam. There is a lot of dam soil downstream in the drainage and a large mound where it dumps into the creek.

There are no collars on the overflow. I theorize that they did not get any decent compaction around the pipe when they dug a channel for it and back-filled with the dozer.

So we need to have a serious discussion. I'm not the expert, but I really believe he's trying to shift blame for bad work by saying it's the pallets' fault.

What to do next? Very good question. Obviously, I welcome input from you all. I fear I do not respect his input quite as much. I know I need a good bit more soil to rebuild and I suspect we'll need to draw the water down a ways so they can get equipment in there. I am thinking I should offer to pay for several dump trucks of good clean (not rocky) clay soil. I suspect we should create some kind of collars for that pipe to prevent seepage along the outside. They didn't do anything on the entrance of the pipe. No concrete facing along the dam, they just broke the pipe along the angle of the dam so it was flush. With clean soil, can you get decent compaction with the bucket of a track hoe? I'm willing to fund and run a manual compactor if that's best. I kinda think he needs to fund their time rebuilding, but he may not agree.

Isn't that an interesting way to get into the world of pond management?

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Im very sorry for what happen it sicks .im no professional im a rookie but thats why I decided to do my pond myself cause I trust nobody. So I bought my d6c cleared my 20 arces companies wanted 36000 to clear my stumps thats more than I payed for the land so I bought the dozer for 12000, in a year i. Cleared the land for about 3000 in fuel and broken parts on the dozer, got it cleared called some more companys about a pond they told me 10000 to 15000 I told them there to high so I decided to build it myself told my self if it fails I know who to blame me. I got about 4000 in fuel and dozer parts into it but shes full and holding water. But I didnt put no pipe in my dam decided that would be a weak spot im going to put a silfon system in stead but like I said im a rookie dont know if I did it the best way but I didnt have what u got and its full for about a month now so im hoping I will be ok . But it looks like its on them more than u tome sorry for ur luck.

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Oh crap. I'm sorry to see that! I agree with you. If collars were supposed to be on the pipe and they weren't, well then it's on him, not you.

I agree with bringing in good clay, but if the dam wasn't built with any, then what was the core made from?

Look at http://ponddampiping.com/

They have anti-seep collars, and take a look at the siphon system. You may want to think about going that route to get the pipe out from being deep inside the dam. That will address the "proper compaction around the pipe" thing. You bring up a good point. If the water level showed that it didn't go over the emergency overflow, then why did the pipe wash out??


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Originally Posted By: esshup
Oh crap. I'm sorry to see that! I agree with you. If collars were supposed to be on the pipe and they weren't, well then it's on him, not you.

I agree with bringing in good clay, but if the dam wasn't built with any, then what was the core made from?

Look at http://ponddampiping.com/

They have anti-seep collars, and take a look at the siphon system. You may want to think about going that route to get the pipe out from being deep inside the dam. That will address the "proper compaction around the pipe" thing. You bring up a good point. If the water level showed that it didn't go over the emergency overflow, then why did the pipe wash out??


I don't recall him saying he'd put collars on the overflow pipe. He said he was putting them on the drain pipe, the 2" line through the bottom. I was ok with that at the time because the overflow pipe would never really be under hydraulic pressure. (If the pipe keeps up and water level doesn't rise over the overflow to emergency spillway) It is at full pool level on the water side, and slopes down to surface level at the back/bottom of the dam. I believe soil compaction around the overflow is the primary fault, but would think that collars around the overflow would only help.

I studied that web site shortly after it occurred. A primary reason why I thought of collars. They seem to do it for exactly such a pipe routing.

The dam was built entirely of soil scraped out of the ravine and the fields to either side of the dam. They said they used the best soil for the core. There is some clay in the soil, but looking in the channel cut through the dam, there's a good bit of rock exposed. I know water will wash soil away and leave it looking rockier than it was really. Rocks have to make water seepage worse. I was trying to find ways where we can do it better and avoid scraping yet further away into my pastures.

The siphon system is intriguing. I don't know how my guy would react to that as it's much more complex than simply running 5 lengths of pipe. So far, I've been letting the expert do it as he sees fit. He knows much more than I do.

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like yourself, I find it hard to believe that a pallet plugging the pipe would cause the pipe to wash out. The pallet didn't shut-off the flow to cause more pressure on the pipe. And if it did, that pressure situation would happen in an extreme rain event anyway. In regards to the pallet partially blocked the pipe, causing a swirling effect, I would say what about a trash guard's effect that may do the same. Would that have made it go? Or if the pipe was so touchy to erosion from a plugging situation, perhaps he should have installed something to safe guard himself as well as you.

Then you say he installed it with a dozer, compacting and all. Hmmmmm, don't sound good. Sure, some soils are very forgiving and easy to compact for ponds. And some heavy equipment operators are excellent in what they do. His equipment broke down, and he decided to install a different way. That was his choice.

It all don't sound right or good to me. However, I am not a professional dirt mover, just a common sense guy who does his own stuff out of necessity. Wish you the best in getting it straightened out.

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DH, I think your best recourse would be to bite the bullet and get the pond guy to repair the breach before your whole dam is gone. I think you are probably right in your analysis but you can never prove it in court. You should ALWAYS have a written contract when dealing with a contractor of any type. Even if you did, the pallets would cast enough doubt on it to prove it in court. Remove everything from your pond that can float and if it happens again, your case is much better. Good luck!!


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DNicholaus, I live in lawrence county also. I'm sorry for the loss of your dam, i know that Christmas rain raised my new pond 13 feet over night. Scared me. It sure looks like a overflow pipe collar problem, especially with the smooth pipe vs. the N12 pipe(got it at CPI). Looking at the hollar you have I might size up to a 18 inch pipe. The heavy rains can bring alot of water fast.

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DNicholaus I sent you a PM.

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I'd visit the local NRCS office and get their recommendation on overflow pipe size which is calculated by watershed, type of soil, vegetation and black magic. They do the calcs and size it accordingly for a flood.


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Just a few observations over here, and I don't intend to be critical but;

1)There doesn't appear to be an emergency spillway adjacent to the levy.

2)What kind of primary spillway did they install? doesn't appear to be a siphon system or drop pipe. Is it just a straight horizontal pipe without anti seep collars? looks like a substandard job from what I can see.

3) What kind of pipe did they use. Definitely not schedule 40. looks flimsy.

4) In some of the photos it appears as if there is a home just below the dam. Is that so?!?

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FishnChips: I don't know about compacting soil around pipe either. Was hoping someone could opine on doing it with a dozer vs a track hoe vs getting a manual compactor and doing it by hand or some other option when we put pipe back in.

Thanks for the suggestion Esshup. There's an NRCS office in Bedford. I'll hit them up.

Gus:
1. There is an emerg spillway on the far side.
2. Pipe wasn't horizontal. It sloped from the wet side full pool level down to base of the dam on the back. There were no collars. Collars mandatory for such an install? It was simply a run of 5 connected straight pipes with minor bend at joints.
3. Couldn't tell you what spec pipe. Here's when it arrived.

4. The house is beyond the dam. It's well protected by earth/bedrock contours that would push water away. Guessing its 8' above the wide pasture below/inline with the dam you see the vehicles parked in. There's a drainage not in that shot that handles the normal flow. Old timers say that pasture has had water flowing in it a couple times.

This shot from up behind the house may give a different perspective. You can also see the dam dipping down a bit better in the green circle. The dam is mostly behind the trees on the right, but the view may be helpful.

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I believe Esshup has mentioned a tamper that is good for small areas like around a pipe. I will tell how I did it, but its not the proper way. I used a backhoe to sprinkle light layers of dirt, then I took the opposite end of a spud bar and used it as a ram to manually tamp the dirt. Long process, doing each layer at a time. My pipe is not that deep, so I do not have a lot of pressure against it, about 3' of water. I do not have a leak yet, it has been in use for a year or so. If I had known about this forum before installing mine, I would have set it up as a siphon drain. Live and learn. I could have used the teeth on the bucket to act like a tamper, but just didn't want to take a chance of damaging the pipe. I don't see how a dozer could "tamp" around a pipe properly, but then again, I never run one, so perhaps I shouldn't be so judgmental.

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Here's the pipe used- someone can comment on whether it is flimsy.


I talked with a guy this weekend who said he didn't like pipes through dams in that area as the soil tends to have too much sand in soils even considered high clay and it doesn't pack well. Makes one think more about bagging the current design and doing a siphon over the top. Might be simpler in the end to buy elbows and more pipe than dealing with multiple dump trucks of clay coming from a ways out.

In preparation for more rain to come this week, I drew down the pond close to a foot on Sat. By morning it was back up a few inches as snowmelt was running in. So I opened the drain line again Sun and dropped it more.. better to have extra space before it tries to flow through that hole in the dam. FYI, just dropping your water level a few inches creates huge cracks in 4" ice. Tis no longer floating, so down it goes.


And Esshup, I spoke with the local NRCS office about their input on overflow design. I got a lot of input about how overwhelmed the office is and they no longer come to any sites. They took my estimate off USGS topos that the 1 ac pond is draining 10 ac and the parcel location and sent the info to the Salem Tech Team. The response was that a 6" overflow pipe should be plenty. As I have (had crazy) a 12" that might make one feel better, but given that they used so little input, makes one wonder.

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I've found that the NRCS offices (at least the ones near here) vary GREATLY in the amount of input and help that they will give a property owner that wants to build a pond. One county near here is great - they will come out, have equipment to take a 20' deep soil sample, etc. The next county over has no equipment, and you get about the same service that you got. And NO, they will not cross county lines - I tried years ago.

I was hoping you had a good office.....


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Unfortunately as you may have found out doing something for a long time doesn't mean you do it right or well.

Sure hope you get this fixed. Definitely a faux pas not putting in at least one collar. It doesn't give me much confidence in your contractor.

At least your pond holds water which is a good point. There are worse fixes. I know some folks up in southeast Indiana where the hollers leak like a sieve.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/04/14 10:30 AM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
Unfortunately as you may have found out doing something for a long time doesn't mean you do it right or well.

Sure hope you get this fixed. Definitely a faux pas not putting in at least one collar. It doesn't give me much confidence in your contractor.

At least your pond holds water which is a good point. There are worse fixes. I know some folks up in southeast Indiana where the hollers leak like a sieve.


I have been doing some reading Cecil. The National Engineering Handbook on dams. I found it rather interesting that they don't recommend anti-seep collars any more except on the lowest risk dams. They prefer a filter diaphragm, which is really a packed bed of sand it seems. Here's a snippet.

628.4501 Anti-seep collars
For many years, anti-seep collars were the standard
design approach used to block the flow of water at the
interface of the conduit and the backfill surrounding
the conduit for all embankments designed by most
design agencies. Based on knowledge gained during
the period of intensive embankment construction by
NRCS and other agencies in the 1960s through 1980s,
the use of anti-seep collars was reconsidered. Beginning
in the mid-1980s, anti-seep collars were eliminated
in designs of major embankment projects because
they were judged to be ineffective in preventing many
types of failures observed. All of the major embankment
design agencies, such as the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers (USACE), Bureau of Reclamation, and
NRCS, as well as private consultants, now specify filter
diaphragms rather than anti-seep collars. Filter diaphragms
have been recognized as superior to anti-seep
collars as a seepage control measure. The NRCS still
allows the use of anti-seep collars for seepage control
along conduits for low hazard dams that are built according
to criteria in Conservation Practice Standard
(CPS) 378.

Perhaps all our dams fall into the lowest risk category. Not saying that I think an anti-seep collar wouldn't have helped or shouldn't go in for Round 2. They just found they can fail. I found their comment about failures upon quick filling too close to home.

Several NRCS embankments constructed in
the 1960s and 1970s failed the first time the
reservoirs filled following construction. The
embankments that failed had anti-seep collars
that were properly designed and installed,
and the surrounding backfill was adequately
compacted

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Also been reading up on siphon piping systems. I am not getting why it would have prevented the failure my dam experienced. The pipe still goes through the dam at roughly full pool levels. I originally thought it went up and over the top of the dam so you wouldn't have the issue of water seepage along the pipe, through the soil. If the overflow pipe still must be buried in a siphon system, why would it be more resistant to washing soil out and breaching the dam?

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Water pressure increases by .5 psi for every foot of depth. More pressure = more force pushing it through the dam. If there was a little seepage along the length of the pipe going through the bottom of the dam, more psi = faster flow, which will cause a washout quicker.

Here's something that NRCS published in 2011, that still has anti-seep collars although they say what you are describing is a viable alternative. I'd really like to hear Mike Otto's thoughts on this.

NRCS Code 378


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Thanks for providing the link to 378. I intended to read that. It's a more concise guide for us small BOW folk.

Seepage along pipes extending through the
embankment shall be controlled by use of a
drainage diaphragm, unless it is determined
that anti-seep collars will adequately serve the
purpose.


This seems to say the diaphragm is preferred unless you can prove collars are adequate, but doesn't ever say how you determine that. I don't think that contradicts the big Handbook.

As my dam is >15' and pipe is >8"dia, it would indicate I needed collars. And since the pipe is 50' long and max spacing is 25'/min is 10', one could surmise I need 1-3 of them. Considering my history, at least 2 would seem prudent.

I get your point about increasing pressure with depth. I am a Mechanical Engineer whose thing is fluid flow. But the trajectory through the dam of my pipe is very similar to that of a siphon. Starts at full pool level, slopes down slightly as it goes through dam about 2' below top, then it bent down at joints and headed for the back / bottom of the dam. Whereas a siphon comes out of the back of the dam higher, mine came out near the bottom. But for the first several feet, the path is quite similar and that has to be where hydraulic pressure is key. So I am unclear how a siphon routing is much less prone to such a breach from hydraulic fracture.

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O.K. So, they just put a pipe thru the dam at an angle, and didn't have it gently sloping with a standpipe in the pond?


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Going back to your original post's details, I still think a lot of the failure was that the pipe was not compacted properly(or possibly the wrong soil), not that it failed because of what style of drain you used. However, because you need to install it again, I would highly consider the siphon drain because it takes the poor quality water out of the pond.

Scott, are you thinking the angle of the pipe would help water increase it's velocity once it started following along the pipe versus a standpipe situation? I would think that could make a big difference once a leak started.

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Originally Posted By: esshup
O.K. So, they just put a pipe thru the dam at an angle, and didn't have it gently sloping with a standpipe in the pond?


Yessir. No standpipe. A single 50' length you see in the photo. It started out "gently sloping" on the wet side, and then angled down more. --\__ ..kinda like that, but on an angle, more gently bending and such. The exit end would have been roughly 15' below the entry end which defines full pool.

Also there was no trash guard. I'm pondering that wisdom of requesting that be added. This is a wooded ravine.. junk will always be coming through.. His saying the pallets blocked the pipe and caused the failure just makes no sense.. and if it were that big a deal, why not design to guard against it?

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Originally Posted By: fish n chips
Going back to your original post's details, I still think a lot of the failure was that the pipe was not compacted properly(or possibly the wrong soil), not that it failed because of what style of drain you used. However, because you need to install it again, I would highly consider the siphon drain because it takes the poor quality water out of the pond.


I get the point of taking out bottom water for a siphon. somewhere I got the impression it might have had a different outcome wrt the breach, but I am not grasping the logic on that aspect. Everything I've read and heard here points to poor compaction around that pipe (and possibly soil too sandy also) and no anti-seep collars. I think I'm on your page.

I need to have a big chat with my man. Can he put in a pipe with proper compaction? He'd have to admit the original was inadequate. He normally uses the track hoe. Can that do the job? Jamming the bucket alongside the pipe? I'm fine with buying more pipe and elbows to put in a siphon.. if it doesn't cause grief with him. It'd still need compaction and collars... the bigger challenge to get right imo.

Thanks for the input & discussion

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Found a comment by RAH that seems to indicate that a track hoe is capable of properly compacting soil around a pipe.

If used properly, the hoe should work just fine. Its all about the operator.

In this thread. soil compaction

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This may be one of those situations where this guy has used this particular method numerous times and had no problem. You might have had the imperfect situation where the pond filled too rapidly for the soil to seal properly around the pipe. Had the pond filled slowly over time with rains and time in between, the pipe and dam might have been fine.

Sometimes corners can be cut and 90% of the time it works. You might have just been the unlucky 10%.

This is of no help solving your situation, but sometimes this is just the way things works out.

Hopefully you and the contractor can come to an arrangement that both of you can live with and get the thing fixed where it will not happen again.

The worrisome thing to me is the contractor trying to blame an obstruction of the pipe as the cause for failure. That is exactly the reason the emergency overflow is there. For when flow is too great or an obstruction covers the opening so the pipe cannot handle all the water. Should have not been anything taking out the pipe. Now if the emergency overflow had washed out from so much water going over it on a newly established dam, that might be understandable. But for the pipe to go without any water going over the emergency, that should not have happened.

Last edited by snrub; 02/04/14 09:37 PM.

John

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