Great points. I hadn't considered deeper being better as far as the ecosystem goes. I would absolutely be willing to go deeper if possible at the expense of maybe reducing the total surface area. The total GUARANTEED water shed I'm dealing with is about 14 acres, with an average 1-2% slope. My hopes are that the clay content will be high enough to encourage runoff on the total 14 acres. Using an online calculator, I think my current thoughts of a 1/3 - 1/2 acre pond size are realistic. The big game changer will be whether I can tap into the street runoff. The next time it rains, I need to drive out there really quickly and see which side of the street the water runs onto. If I get lucky, and the water runs across my property entrance, then I'll be capturing water from the neighboring block, adding about 20 acres to the total watershed. We had a really wet May, June, and first half of July, then BAMMM, no rainfall more than a 1/10th of an inch since mid July.
I'm feeling antsy to go out there during/after a big thunderstorm! Today we've got a 40% chance. Fingers crossed.
