Hello, I am new to this forum and have been planning to build a .5 to 1 acre pond in Walker County, Texas. There are several ponds in the area and they all seem to hold water pretty well. The soil is mostly sandy loam with clay at about 7'. I have a wet weather creek that runs through the property with plenty of watershed. I need some help locating the best area for the pond and need a few references of people in the Huntsville area that could do some dirt work. I have attached a topo of the property and a google earth map with the proposed pond location.
Any help you may have would be greatly appreciated.
Paul
Last edited by pbcarter; 09/19/1007:57 PM. Reason: attached a better topo map
If you are going to try to build it in that stream bed, you are going to want it much larger. I was planning a 2 acre pond to handle drainage from around 40 acres. How many acres does that creek drain?
Water dries, rocks crumble, and trees die. The only thing that is eternal is the reputation we leave behind. - Ancient Viking Proverb
My best guess is around 200 acres. This seasonal creek that originates just before my property is part of the Robinson Branch which feeds into the San Jacinto River. It starts about a 1000' before it gets to my property and is over a gently sloping terrain (about a 1% slope). How do I calculate the runoff which will flow though it during a heavy rain?
Still new at this, but it depends on ground cover as well as slope. I had 40 acres of timber draining into my proposed site and I was told 1.5-2 acres. If it is a linear relationship, that means you could go up to 7.5 or 10 acres for that 200 acres of drainage. For example, if we get 3 inches of rain, which is not uncommon where we live, most will run off and the runoff would put 3-5ft of water into a 10 acre pond. A 1 acre pond would go from empty to overflowing with that one event. Theoretically a 1 acre pond would have the water level increase by 30-50 ft if it had the capacity! I am sure somebody will chime in with more knowledge than me.
Water dries, rocks crumble, and trees die. The only thing that is eternal is the reputation we leave behind. - Ancient Viking Proverb
After doing a little research of my own I found your assessment to be correct. I have 200 to 300 acres of watershed and based on 8 acres per acre foot of water and a runoff factor of 60% I calculate that I would need to build a 4-5 acre pond in addition to having a good spillway. Does anyone see a flaw in this logic? I was not planning this big of a pond but if the watershed will support it I may give it a try! I have attached a new pond layout based on the above and some of the reference data that I used in my calculations.
pbcarter, just a couple of the bigger problems with building a smaller pond in that size watershed would be flushing out fish and serious dam reinforcements needed.
