Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Dirt removal from Pond

I had a guy call me on the phone and ask me if I would be interested in letting him take 14,ooo yards of dirt off of my property for the shoulder widening of the county road. I thought it might be a good idea to let him have the dirt that is in the upper end of the pond where it is dry now but shallow when the pond is full. Can you think of any drawbacks to this deal?

How much is he going to pay you? He will be selling the dirt to the county. You should get a fair part.

Any chance it will leave a big leak?

You have to control how much he takes and its location.

Excellent points. 14,000 yds removed intelligently = nicer, bigger pond. 14,000 yds removed carelessly = big muddy mess.

Is it time to build pond #2, to be used for another special pond endeavor?

Dirt sells for a buck a yard around here if they dig and haul it. Those that I know who have done this, are so happy to have somebody pay them anything for the dirt that they encourage them to take as much as they want.

Is there another location they can go to if you price it too high?

Congratulations and good luck,
Eddie

Thanks for the input. I haven't met him on the site and don't know if they pay for dirt. I just know when the pond was built we piled up a lot of dirt that came off of the bottom and made hills. This is a picture of the upper end of the pond when the water was really low two years ago. This picture shows some of the dirt that we piled up that I would like to get rid of since it is hard to mow. I don't know how much dirt is in each one of those ridges but they are about six feet tall and fifty feet long and about twenty feet wide.

Extra water storage (bigger/deeper pond) may be more important than those ridges. Some of both might work well. 14,000 yds is a lot - at 20 yds per dump truck it is 700 truck loads.

If he'll doze it out to load, I would have him on it tomorrow. I have been cleaning out a dry one building a levy and a new road.
I'm calling the county and see if they need any down here!

Have you thought about just dozing it out and leveling the area?

James

Call him back and and tell him to get started. Get out the trees and go to work.

Otto

I had mine dug for the dirt. He did not have a particular project he was hauling for, he just had several contractors in the area he supplied dirt to.

Make sure you get a drawing of what he can and cannot do and have him sign a contract. Make sure you get in writing that they have to restore the egress/access to your property. I know some of these guys will destroy your property and leave.

While he had the trackhoe on my property, I had him do some other "nice to have done" type stuff (tree removal, drainage work, etc...) that was not part of the pond project. I fed them lunch and gave them drinks. It was also great to have the equipment here for the post Hurricane Ike clean-up.

Also, a free pond was much cheaper than the quotes for $10,000+ the other guys wanted to dig it for!