The water level will be controlled in the swales. A swale is basically a giant ditch cut on contour so its completely level throughout the property. Its uncompacted topsoil that forms a mound on the down hill side. Its a tree growing system that hydrates the landscape. There will be a culvert that runs east and west through the driveway that leads to the shop doors. That culvert will connect to a swale on the other side that runs east as far as it can until I run into straight forest. In this swale will be a level sill spillway that will passively discharge excess water. By controlling where you cut the mound of the swale for the spilkway , you control the water height of the dam, and you can direct that water in whatever direction you desire, in this case, to help fill an older poorly constructed pond downhill. As rains water flows across the property it gets caught in the swale, since the swale is level, water will flow into the pond at the end of the swale until the pond is full and then once the pond is full, water will back flow into the swale filling it up to the level sill spillway and then discharge. Once the rain stops the water in the swale soaks slowly into the mound and super hydrates the landscape. There will be a second swale attached to the pond that runs to the north fence border. One this swale there will be another spillway, quite wide and 6 inches higher then the other spillway. There will be no culvert between this swale and the pond and this will serve as the emergency spillway in case the culvert plugs at 2am while I'm sleeping. The primary spillway will set the freeboard at 2 feet max water height and the emergency will be 1.5 feet freeboard. I deem this an acceptable amount of freeboard on a ridge. If it were a valley dam, the minimum freeboard is 3 feet.
As far as sealing a pond. There are several methods. I've personnaly ran pigs in an old pond that use to dry up and it held water all year, however the pigs are quite destructive and I would never own them again.
Ducks I have not tried personally but I have spoke to many people and my mentor has done it. Its similar to gleying a pond if your familiar with that technique. Basically you get a whole bunch ducks and let them poop in your pond for a year or two. The duck has a very fine manure that breaks down into small particles in the water and are pulled into seeps in the pond walls as a thin layer builds, over time the ponds seals.
There are ways to do this with cows etc. But I have kept ducks before and they are most likely the easiest animal to care for.
I encourage you to check out geofflawton.com and sign up to see his free videos. There is one where he explains the process of sealing a pond with ducks.
Its worth noting at this point. Swales are tree growing systems, you plant forest on them. Mine will contain fruit and lumber trees. They fully hydrate the landscape, springs will pop out downhill around 7 years after installation.
As far as how much fish I expect to produce, the answer is, well not much, I don't really care for fish. But it can never hurt to have another source of food sitting in your front yard
edited because I cannot spell
Last edited by Eric H; 11/03/15 08:26 AM.
