Pond Boss Magazine
https://www.pondboss.com/images/userfiles/image/20130301193901_6_150by50orangewhyshouldsubscribejpeg.jpg
Advertisment
Newest Members
Shotgun01, Dan H, Stipker, LunkerHunt23, Jeanjules
18,451 Registered Users
Forum Statistics
Forums36
Topics40,902
Posts557,116
Members18,452
Most Online3,612
Jan 10th, 2023
Top Posters
esshup 28,420
ewest 21,475
Cecil Baird1 20,043
Bill Cody 15,112
Who's Online Now
4 members (anthropic, Brev, Dave Davidson1, jpsdad), 683 guests, and 208 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 821
A
Lunker
OP Offline
Lunker
A
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 821
<Howdy PB friends - been a while since I posted>

Thought I would share a couple learned lessons in ponds. For the first 10 years of ownership of my 8.5 acre pond, the biggest problem we faced was not enough rain/low water. After 10 years of focusing on not enough water, it never really occurred to me that we *may* someday have too much water. Guess I was lulled into a false sense of security...that someday was last December when we had 2 x 6"+ inch rain events on consecutive days.

Long story short, water went over the dam and the dam, as you can see from the pics below, is history. We blew out about a 40 - 50 foot section of the dam.


http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/darnold01/Backside.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/darnold01/Gap.jpg








Last edited by ewest; 03/15/16 01:19 PM.

- Smoke 'em if you got 'em

[Linked Image from i4.photobucket.com]

Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 6,080
Likes: 1
Offline
Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 6,080
Likes: 1
That's tough man. Is the blowout where the spillway was?


[Linked Image]
Be Brave Enough to Suck at Something New!
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 74
Offline
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 74
Man, that is painfull to see. Going to rebuild?


2011 five acre pond. LMB, SMB, HSB, SPB, BG, CNBG, HBG, RES, WM, CC, BCP, GC, FHM, GSH
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 227
T
Offline
T
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 227
That made physically sick to see! How much watershed area do you have ? Did you have stone in the spillway? Sorry about your predicament, I hope you rebuild. I don't think it's gonna be that expensive to fix.

Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 6,086
Likes: 93
S
Offline
S
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 6,086
Likes: 93
Sad deal.

Good reason to have:
1. plenty of freeboard to hold temporary excess water
2. wide flat emergency overflow to keep main part of dam from being breeched
3. rock or riprap covering the emergency overflow and up the sides of the emergency overflow so water does not cut an erosion ditch when excessive flow happens.

When you redo it, you can make the pond even better than before.


John

I subscribe to Pond Boss Magazine
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 821
A
Lunker
OP Offline
Lunker
A
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 821
Thanks guys, yes we are set up to rebuild as soon as conditions permit.

The watershed is approx 532 acres.

There is an emergency spillway.

The breach happened on the opposite end of the dam from the spillway.

Sort of a long story:

I acquired the property 10 years ago, the pond was existing, probably about ~25 years old at that time. However, the original stand pipe had corroded and broke off at the base, draining the lake. The pond had basically reverted to a 10 acre swamp with brush, trees, wild animals...ect.

We hired a dirt guy & cleaned up the lake, removed the broken stand pipe and repaired the dam where the stand pipe had been. We added an emergency spillway and added a 12" siphon drain pipe to deal with normal rain events. So thinking we were all set.

When we cut in the emergency spillway & took free board measurements on that side of the dam (the dam is about 600' long). Everything looked fine and we had close to 3 feet of free board. (what we didn't realize) is that the dam had a gentle slope beginning about halfway across & sloped to the other side of the embankment. The slope is so slight that it was not visible to the eye. AKA the dam "looks" level & we didn't measure the entire perimeter when cutting in the spillway.

We did a lot of things right - but ultimately the dirt guy we hired didn't have the right experience although he had built a lot of ponds. Big difference between a dirt guy and a pond builder...

This time I hired Mike Otto to get us back on the right track...


- Smoke 'em if you got 'em

[Linked Image from i4.photobucket.com]

Joined: May 2014
Posts: 3,861
Likes: 298
A
Online Content
A
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 3,861
Likes: 298
You know, Gator, the ratio between plus 500 acres of watershed and an 8.5 acre pond means that you will have extreme amounts of water to deal with during heavy rain events. I'm sure Mike Otto will take that into account on your spillway, it will likely need to be built specially for those kind of flows.

So sorry about the problem. Hard to think about too much water when you've had years of not getting enough!


7ac 2015 CNBG RES FHM 2016 TP FLMB 2017 NLMB GSH L 2018 TP & 70 HSB PK 2019 TP RBT 2020 TFS TP 25 HSB 250 F1,L,RBT -206 2021 TFS TP GSH L,-312 2022 GSH TP CR TFS RBT -234, 2023 BG TP TFS NLMB, -160




Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 6,086
Likes: 93
S
Offline
S
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 6,086
Likes: 93
I bought a construction grade laser level when we built our pond (after an associate ran over a sub-construction grade laser I already had). I flagged it all the way around the pond with plastic flags showing where the water line would be. This gives a good visual indication of what level is.

Since we lacked experience doing this kind of work (we are farmers, not contractors), I was kind of anal checking elevations and making sure we were getting things correct. I even kept checking my flags relative against what was left of the original NRCS flags the agent set to see if what I was doing was in agreement.

Having an unexpected low spot on a dam is not a good thing.


John

I subscribe to Pond Boss Magazine
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 821
A
Lunker
OP Offline
Lunker
A
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 821
The emergency spillway is the width of 1 D8 dozer blade, we plan to double it and drop it about a foot.

The original Dirt guy surveyed the entire water line - which is fine. But didn't re-check entire dam compared to the emergency spillway height. I've had many folks look at the dam and by eye-sight it looks level - you figure something that has been there for 30+ years "must be ok"...but not so much.


- Smoke 'em if you got 'em

[Linked Image from i4.photobucket.com]

Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 6,086
Likes: 93
S
Offline
S
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 6,086
Likes: 93
Yes, it can be deceiving. I've tried to run water up hill more than once in a field terrace channel before we got the proper equipment to actually measure grade.

What made it worse in your case is having the water low so long there was no close reference line to observe. Had the pond filled normally and got to full pool level, you might have noticed the low spot then with the water level up closer to it.

Too much water all at once never gave you the chance.


John

I subscribe to Pond Boss Magazine
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 2,424
Likes: 19
J
Offline
J
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 2,424
Likes: 19
I think you will find that the e spillway needs to be about 80 feet wide, at least.

Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 1,381
Likes: 46
W
Offline
W
Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 1,381
Likes: 46
Tough loss. Sorry to see that. Got to be cool to work with Otto tho!


Keep This Forum Viable, Read Pond Boss Magazine -
America's Journal of Pond Management
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 887
Likes: 3
B
Offline
B
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 887
Likes: 3
Mike will get you fixed. AS far as the "eye ball leveling" it just doesn't work, even for the best. Mike built me a terrace, that EVERYONE that saw it said it won't work because it is going up hill, but EVERYONE was wrong, but Mike. It flowed just like it was supposed to. Contour of the land will create optical illusions, but the level doesn't lie.


1.8 acre pond with CNBG, RES, HSB, and LMB
Trophy Hunter feeder.
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 20,043
Likes: 1
Hall of Fame
Lunker
Offline
Hall of Fame
Lunker
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 20,043
Likes: 1
Wow that sucks. I'd freak if my damn burst. So would the vehicle traffic that it parallels!


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






Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 154
Likes: 1
Offline
Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 154
Likes: 1
Wow makes you realize how quick things go from just fine to really bad with damns...


My pond renovation thread here
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 904
Likes: 1
Offline
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 904
Likes: 1
Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
Wow that sucks. I'd freak if my damn burst. So would the vehicle traffic that it parallels!


Ditto....if my levee were to fail there would be some calls from the county road commission and likely the sheriff...as it'd probably wash out the road.


Dale

[Linked Image from i90.photobucket.com]

"When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water." - anonymous
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 21,475
Likes: 264
E
Moderator
Hall of Fame 2014
Lunker
Offline
Moderator
Hall of Fame 2014
Lunker
E
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 21,475
Likes: 264
Gator sorry for the event but very glad to have you back posting.

Mike will do a great job. It is often amazing what we don't know until it bites us.

Thought about stocking plans and structure adds while you wait ?
















Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 20,043
Likes: 1
Hall of Fame
Lunker
Offline
Hall of Fame
Lunker
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 20,043
Likes: 1
Originally Posted By: dlowrance
Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
Wow that sucks. I'd freak if my damn burst. So would the vehicle traffic that it parallels!


Ditto....if my levee were to fail there would be some calls from the county road commission and likely the sheriff...as it'd probably wash out the road.


Ditto here too! eek


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







Link Copied to Clipboard
Today's Birthdays
cro, HC1968
Recent Posts
Relative weight charts in Excel ? Calculations?
by esshup - 03/29/24 01:06 AM
pond experience needed
by esshup - 03/29/24 12:45 AM
New pond middle TN: establishing food chain?
by Bill Cody - 03/28/24 07:57 PM
Happy Birthday Bob Lusk!!
by FireIsHot - 03/28/24 07:33 PM
Working on a .5acre disaster, I mean pond.
by PRCS - 03/28/24 06:39 PM
Fungus infection on fish
by nvcdl - 03/28/24 06:07 PM
Can anyone ID these minnows?
by Dylanfrely - 03/28/24 05:43 PM
1 year after stocking question
by esshup - 03/28/24 04:48 PM
Yellow Perch Spawn 2024
by H20fwler - 03/28/24 04:29 PM
New 2 acre pond stocking plan
by LANGSTER - 03/28/24 03:49 PM
Paper-shell crayfish and Japanese snails
by esshup - 03/28/24 10:39 AM
Newly Uploaded Images
Eagles Over The Pond Yesterday
Eagles Over The Pond Yesterday
by Tbar, December 10
Deer at Theo's 2023
Deer at Theo's 2023
by Theo Gallus, November 13
Minnow identification
Minnow identification
by Mike Troyer, October 6
Sharing the Food
Sharing the Food
by FishinRod, September 9
Nice BGxRES
Nice BGxRES
by Theo Gallus, July 28
Snake Identification
Snake Identification
by Rangersedge, July 12

� 2014 POND BOSS INC. all rights reserved USA and Worldwide

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5