My plan as of right now is a 6-1 slope most of the way down then a sharp dropp off at around 6 feet of depth to hopefully 12 feet deep or deeper if I can secure the proper places to put soil... the problem is with all the permitting. I will need the hancock county surveyor so sign off on the pond design. I will need the neighbor to sign off on the 20 feet of undisturbed soil by the property line during construction (which I am 99 percent sure he will be fine with). I will need the surveyor (who acting in the capacity of the flooplain administrator) to approve using the soil in the flood hazard area to be able to spread the soil out and grade it towards the pond to alleviate a few wetspots that will become the wooded part of my back yard as well as using the soil to build the berm around the pond. Ill need the the Indiana DNR water division to approve digging a ditch through the floodway to allow my overflow pipe to go to the creek. The surveyor said I could NOT run the overflow pipe to one of the natural drainage ditches that run to the creek anyways. Since I will be digging that ditch for the overflow I figure I might as well tie a perimeter drain from the septic into the same ditch running to the creek and kill two birds with one stone.... ill just have to divert the perimeter drain outlet tile around the pond which wont be a big deal.

There is ALOT that can go wrong before all the stars align. If I can get the neighbor who is not currently using the pasture next to me and only plans to put cattle on it anyways, to allow me to let my contractor just dozer the dirt across both of our properties and level it out then I will not have to haul a single truckload of dirt and I think I can get the cost of the pond to 5k if I did the ditch myself and provide the piping.

When I talked to the surveyor initially she just kept telling me how difficult it would be to get all the proper permissions, but its not her job to tell me how hard it is, its her job to tell me what I need to do to get approval.

I think a two foot berm around the pond will suffice to keep the flood waters away.

Last edited by Indygunworks; 05/23/13 09:19 PM.