Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Building our pond in NE Missouri.

The pond is a little over an acre, and the drainage area is around nine acres.
The fields used to have wheat, and bean stubble in them, now they are in alfalfa. The alfalfa seems to keep a lot more of the water from coming through. Also included in the nine acres of drainage is four acres of heavily wooded hillside. The trees and undergrowth don't seem to let much moisture through either. We have had normal rainfall this year, but are coming off of two years of drought. I'm thinking the ground is still taking up moisture from the drought.
Hopefully late this fall we will get some big rains, or next spring for sure. The pond guy in the USDA office still wanted me to place a drain pipe in the dam for a primary spillway, then have a secondary spillway. He did say he'd prefer ten acres of drainage for a one acre pond, but he thought I'd be "ok" with the drainage I had. He said I was borderline on wether I needed a drain pipe. Taking the dozer up into the alfalfa fields had to have added at least an additional acre drainage. Now though I better get some fescue seed down in those new ditches along the edges of the fields.