Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam I got a hole

Hi, my name's Mark and I'm a pond owner. Some time lurker, no time poster, now I got a problem. Figures, eh?

My little project is in Nebraska, not that it matters right now. I have a quarter-section with several ponds on it but am focusing on two right by the house. Total surface acres runs about 2.5 with the "upper" pond draining into the "lower" pond through a pipe in the dam. It's a 15 foot drop or so from one to the other. Upper pond is about an acre. No problem there or with water flowing into the lower pond.

Lower pond drains via a corrugated steel riser and barrel through the dam. Riser looks really big to me (I didn't build these ponds), like about 44", and the problem is there. Water has washed dirt out around the riser about 4-5' down and there is a hole rusted in the riser. Water is flowing over the remaining bank, dropping down into void surrounding riser and through hole down to barrel and on through the dam.

I'm not very smart and don't know what to do...but I have great fear it involves cables, a helicopter, several lazy and overpaid men leaning on shovels, numerous permits and incalculable embarassment on my part. Don't tell anyone, but I've considered dropping gravel into the void to cover the hole and pouring cement to "cap" it but will also need to bring in lots of dirt to fill the void and, if it doesn't work, have to remove all the dirt and cap under cover of darkness before calling in experts (and helicopters).

We just got the fish to catchable sizes (started stocking after refilling the ponds 2 1/2 years ago--they were dry when we bought the property) and have enough bluegills, channel cats, wipers, walleye (really) and, as of last fall, LMB in there to keep my son's Boy Scout troop busy for weeks on end. I hate to talk about draining and losing them as we don't have them all named yet.

Is there any hope for me...or at least my pond? Is this fixable on a long-term basis or are we talking removal and replacement of the drain?

Thanks for your help, thoughts and patience with a newbie.

Welcome to the posting part of PB! Sorrry it is because of such a big problem.

Don't have a clue on the fix but stay away from the pond side of the leak or you may well become a permanent plug!

The good news is that you can save all your fish by putting them in the upper pond and then re-tranferring them.

Sorry to hear about your predicament HPR, but you're at the right place and the right guys will get you the right answer. Best of luck. I doubt you'll need a helicopter but, then again what the heck do I know about this?

So I've been thinking about this overnight.

I suppose that, if I could horse the trash rack off the riser (maybe just a small crane but I hate to give up the helicopter idea), maybe I could convince a crazed welder to drop down in there--somehow--and weld a patch over the hole. I'd worry about doing it from the outside as I'd have to move some dirt away and then the vict...er, welder, would have to stand between the pipe and the weakened bank. I'd be kind of nervous about that.

Anyone ever tried anything like this? Anyone a crazed welder with a crane or helicopter and trash rack removal experience?

Anyone?

HPR
First welcome to the forum sorry for your troubles.

Not sure where the water level is, if it is below the rusted out pipe see if you can get a welder to patch. There is no air movement in the pipe that could be a problem.
The real problem is this, the bad place in the pipe you found could be just the the first of many bad spots.

Before this is all over you may have to do a lot of work, mabey replace the pipe.
Otto

HPR,welcome aboard.Sorry to hear about your problem.Is there any way you could put a smaller pipe inside or out as a "sleeve repair?I am a welder,and have been a victim on several occasions,but I think Im a little far away to help.On the other hand,you could get some dynamite and blow the hole shut,but the fish dont like the noise. Just kidding.

If I didn't know better, Tom G., I would ask if the "G" stands for gelignite.

You might reserach this company. http://culvert-rehab.com
I'm sure it is not cheap but might be the best and most economic long term fix. Before I did anything I would go in and determine how much rout is present before ruling out just patching it as you are thanking about doing. I think there are other companies that come it and spray a concrete liner in your existing pipe but I can't seem to find a link to them. I had a new all aluminum drop structure of simialr size installed in a new pond in 2007 and it cost 8900$ installed. It might be possible to get a track hole in, build a coffer dam around the existing pipe, remove it and install all new with out draining the entire pond allowing the fish to stay in place.

Thanks for the input guys.

Pipe is too far gone to weld. Otto's right, there are certainly other places it's going, too. The exposed end of the barrel is in really bad shape, so I'm sure most of the metal is past repair.

One guy thought we could drop about a hundred sacks of quickrete down around the riser and let them form a new tube around it. Seemed reasonable until we really thought about it.

Had the son of the guy who originally built the ponds out. He says the records are gone but the ponds are at least 30 years old, quite possibly more. He still runs the contracting company and thinks maybe a shotgun tube about 40' away from the current riser may be best. We also considered just plugging the drain and letting the spillway take care of overflow, adding crushed concrete and rock to alleviate any erosion issues. I think we'd only get water over the spillway a few times a year but I'm worried about fish going over when it flows. We could raise the pond level a foot and a half, maybe two, with this hare-brained scheme without compromising the dam at all.

OK, tell me if there's a way to retain the fish and just how bad the idea of plugging the drain without replacing it is.

One other thought is to plug the drain and install a shotgun tube near the top elevation of the spillway. That is, go out (toward the pond) far enough to get an elevation drop of six inches or so, install a shotgun tube through the spillway at a pretty shallow angle of drop, cut the inlet end of the tube more or less "flush" with the ground and intall a trash grate sort of like a storm sewer grate might look. Ponds could fill up to the new elevation of the shotgun tube and, when really going, flow over the spillway.

This seems workable to me (and much easier and cheaper) than getting the equipment and tube past the spillway to the dam. Access is much easier and we'll have to take out many less trees to get this done.

Does that make sense? What do I not understand?

Rocky, your suggestions might work, but I'm going to have to get some serious gear through the woods and trash a bunch of timber to do that. I think we could do the shallow shotgun with just a backhoe and a tractor.

Thanks again for the ideas and consideration. I really like the dynamite idea, TG, mainly because it makes such a big bang. I like explosions. If there was a way (and a really good excuse and the fish wouldn't be upset about it)...

Mark

You are on the right path. The plan is the easiesy way to get the problem fixed. Fill the pipe with what ever you can get in it, concrete is the best. I have used fines from the rock crusher. They are cheep will fall into place and make a good plug.

You may want to rework the whole pond some day. That would be the time to remove the pipe and install a new one.

A pond that is thirty years old will have a lot of silt to clean out.
As long as you feel the dam is safe fix it the best and cheepest way you can.

Thanks Otto.

Actually the ponds were dry when I bought the place three and a half years ago. We got to look at them before we filled them and silt's not an issue. We also have a silt pond above both of them that catches pretty much everything that washes down from the cornfields in the watershed. They thought about these things when they built them.

I'll make sure we get pictures of the process when we get things moving.

You might consider a sipon system. It can be installed with little or no cutting of the dam and no real worries of fish loss. Good luck

Went back and read cmfulmer's excellent thread about his siphon system and got scared by all the scientifical technologisms behind it. I felt better when I read the explanation by Brettski as I remember when all that happened.

BTW cmf, about a million years ago I used to date a girl from Jonesboro who went to school at UCA. Her brother was at Hendrix. I've actually been to Toadsuck. But I digress, as usual.

My first thought, which someone else asked, was about freezing. I'm in Nebraska and we get some pretty raw winters. Anyone up her in the great gray north have any experience with siphon systems?

Hello, I am a newbie here...but I have a thought...can you place a new pipe from the backside of the dam, then drop a new pipe from the water side into the drain and fashion a new "top" by welding steel to the old pipe? Something like that? Maybe could use the Helo's for the second stage of the project Pics may help us to get some ideas of what your working with.

Good Luck!