Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Loss of Dirt on backside of Dam

You are in good hands, keep us posted.

NightRider,

I am glad to hear you are in good hands.

I know the feeling I had, I am away on business, wife calls at dusk, says its raining cats, dogs, horses, cows, pigs and some other creatures she has never seen before, water is coming over top of levee, eldest sone is on top of levee with a shovel cutting a ditch across the top of the levee to let the pond drain out some........

Yea, heart dropped, fear overwhelmed me till dispair overtook that feeling....Cotton Picker.....that was 2 weeks ago, I am still getting after shocks across my heart....

Coupe Deville
Waxia Bayou Louisiana

Night: I don't know where you are in Southern Illinois, but I live in Fayette County. Rex knows where I live.

I have probably 60 feet of the 2.5 inch green hose, connectors, stoppers, etc. It is in five or six pieces so I often have three or more hoses running at the same time when I lower my pond water level..

You are welcome to borrow it all if we are close enough to each other, or if Rex's trip to your place takes him through Brownstown.

Bing, Thanks for the offer! Night is just east of Mt Vernon. When I got there, water was about 2 feet onto the top of his dam on the pool side with only an inch or less to rise before topping the dam entirely. It took a bit longer to build the siphon than expected, but it's going strong and his level is going down. We also discovered what looked to be a rotted root that is now a steady flow of about 1-2 gpm on the backside of the dam in part of previous repair of muskrat damage in the dam. The water was very clear coming out, so it did not appear to be eroding more and flow/pressure was pretty minimal. Once the level has dropped a few feet and things dry out a bit, Night will be able to get repairs done.

Sorry I have no pictures....Thought I took some, but I apparently took about 10, one second video's instead.....stupid smart phone....

Good work Rex this is the only place on the planet that something like that would happen
Post pictures if possible

Thanks to everyone for the advice along the way and especially thanks to Rainman(Rex) for making the trip and passing along a lot of knowledge throughout the process.

The siphon works great and I have dropped the water level about three feet. The small hole on the backside of the dam that Rex mentions actually stopped after about six inches of water was lowered. I've located the hole on the front side and will take care of it once the ground dries out a bit.

I am making contacts and planning on redoing the dam this year as well as clean off the back of the dam and actually looking at damming up the backside overflow as another pond. Lots of ideas and hope my money can keep up with my ideas haha. Exciting stuff.

I will post pics in the next day or so. Again, thanks to everyone.

good for you, it is hard to beat Rex