Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction 1930's dam leaking badly in East Texas

Hello, friends. I'm new to the forum here. Thanks for providing a fantastic resource.

Here's my situation. This pond is about 7 acres when full. The watershed is about 120 acres of hay meadow. The deepest part is 15 feet when full. The dam is about 300 feet long. The spillway is a 2 foot culvert flowing onto grass. The soil is sandy loam with clay below. There is a county road near the north side of the dam.

There are trees on the county road easement that have grown roots into the dam. There is water running out from under the trees into the roadside ditch. This seems to be where most of the water is coming from, but the whole backside of the dam stays wet all the time. The water level has dropped to 5-6 feet below spillway level and won't get any higher. Since the water has dropped, I can see rodent burrows in the dam below the waterline.

I am rebuilding an irrigation pump to drain the pond. Next I plan to get the trees off the dam with a dozer. Roots and all.

There is clay on the property. I am deciding whether to recore the dam or spread the clay on the front of the dam. Recoring the thing with a trackhoe sounds like a nightmare. Does anyone have experience with that?

While the pond is down I plan to work on habitat, so I need to learn all I can about that aspect of it. I also plan to put some piers around the pond.

There are huge bass (12 lbs is the pond record), monster crappie, perch, and catfish. The fish in the pond are healthy, despite the years of drought. I hate to lose them, so I am wondering if I could catch them (electrifishing) and release them into another pond until time to restock? Just an idea. Or we could have a big fish fry!

I am open to suggestions and eager to discuss ideas. Thanks!

stump...welcome to PondBoss
what part of Texas ya in?
also can you provide a picture or two?

I think recoring the dam would be the route to take that would offer the best chance of success. It would also give you a chance to inspect the overflow pipe. If it was mine, and the pipe was older, I would be kicking myself if I did all that work and the pipe failed a few years in the future.

I am trying to visualize this in my head. If he had room in the back of the dam, why couldn't he just add a few feet of clay to the rear? You would still have to fix the tree situation, but the original dam should be holding the bulk of the pressure. This would be just a long term patch job. I imagine the cost would be much cheaper, and the fish would be fine.

How bad is the damage to the dam from the trees? How big of roots are into the dam? If he stopped the water flow through the dam and sealed it with new clay. Wouldn't the dam seal itself as the roots decomposed?

Thanks for the response, y'all. I'm near Mineola, TX. I'll get some pictures posted soon.

The overflow pipe is plastic pipe, so it was added at some point. It looks to be in pretty good shape.

I'm not sure how big the roots are, but the trees are big oaks. The water runs right out from under them on the backside. I'll post pics. With all that erosion, and the discovery of rodent burrows, I don't want to put a dozer to work on the dam with any water in the pond.

As for recoring, could I dig the trench along the front? Or for that matter the backside? Seems like it would save me quite a few feet of digging and packing. The top 5 feet are all freeboard, and this pond has never gotten that high, even back when the dam wasn't leaking and it used to rain.

And if I recore, does it have to be drained it all the way down? Maybe I could save some fish that way.

Hi StumpJumper,

I'm a near neighbor from Lindale, with our property just South of Van.

Our 10 acre lake was built in the early 1950s, reportedly with mules and sleds. It had a lot of big trees and extreme damage from beavers and nutria. The top of the dam was only 7 to 8 feet wide, which made it tricky to drive on. We spent a chuck of money about 4 years ago for a fellow to come in with his excavator and bull dozer to work on the dam. He removed a portion of the trees and cleaned it up a lot, but this did nothing for the damage from the beavers.

With the drought, our lake level dropped about 6 feet, down to about 3 acres, and we were able to really see the how many holes and tunnels the beavers had created. I got estimates of $40,000 to $50,000 of fix it, which was way out of my budget.

We were able to find a mid-size excavator and started work ourselves. We realized that working from the top of the dam was not going to be productive, and started building a road in the front (lakeside) of the dam. This enabled us to remove a large portion of the dam to the backwall. With the severe beaver damage, that portion of the dam had to be replaced. It could never have been patched.

We have continued to build up the road with good clay, and it, along with the remaining dam is now our new dam, The top will be 20 to 30 feet wide.

We are now 1 - 1/2 years into this project, but can see major progress. I know this was the right solution for our situation, and I am really looking forward to having a 10 acre lake again.

Thanks, Larry. Your situation looks very similar to mine. Wanna bring your excavator and come play? LOL

Thank you very much. We played out a couple thousand yards ago. It is not as much fun anymore.

Helluva project which will surely plug any holes! I look at projects like this, and start to loose my fantasy of building a large "lake/pond". Making me happy with 1/2 acre.