I am not understanding something, I think?

Usually a sediment/settling pond is placed upstream of the main pond. If designed properly, it will catch a significant amount of silt and organic debris (muck) that will slowly rob depth from your main pond.

I saw one on an old Pond Boss thread where the design included a long peninsula in the middle so an excavator had an easy working bench to periodically clean out the sediment.

Building a 2-acre pond is going to take a decent amount of time and you might encounter one or more rains. Having an upstream pond might save you from having a wet worksite - which wastes a lot of machine time and expensive fuel.

You have at least two options. One is a sediment pond that is very shallow at "normal" pool level. That type is designed to grow lots of emergent plants that help trap sediment during subsequent heavy rain events.

The other option is to build it as forage, grow-out, or small bonus pond. Design it like a mini version of your main pond. Stock it as desired. Design it with an easy drainage system so you can start over with that pond any time you want.

P.S. Your main pond construction project may involve some dirt work downstream of your dam core trench. I believe most sites have a drainage channel cut to de-water the construction site if you have some groundwater or get a rain prior to back-filling the dam core. However, that type of stuff is very site specific.


I am NOT a pond construction expert. Just throwing out some ideas so you can make good plans with your pond builder.