Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Pond location

Hi,

Another question. Can you help me select a location for my pond?. The property is mostly wooded, I have a 2 acre clearance in the upper right corner, but I'm not sure I'll have enough run-off for a 1 acre pond.
I also marked another two spots (water) for possible locations?. I will have to build a trail and clear those.
Any suggestions will be appreciated?.

Look at that topo map. I would start the pond in the lower center "gully", approximately at the 410' elevation mark, and cut a couple of ditches or swales going NE and SW to collect any runoff from the 500' elevations and lower in those directions.

Stop at your local NRCS office and get a soil map of the property, and also ask them if there is enough runoff in that area to supply a pond the size you want to build without punching in a well to help supplement it. Without having the correct soil to seal the pond, you will be looking at a liner to do that, and that my friend will cost some $$$ not only for the liner, but the labor to install it. That size liner will require seaming on-site.

I'll stop by to check. I went to their online map and it says "very limited" due to slope (1.00) and seepage (0.53) for that area.

Ask them how deep that soil survey goes. It might need you to get some heavy equipment on-site to dig a few test holes before you make a decision. We did some test holes in an iffy area of soils and the results of the test holes showed that the only way to ensure that the pond would hold water was to put a liner in it. The customer wanted a 1.25 acre pond, 20' deep.

Tavo,

Where is your location in Texas? The amount of annual rain to fill the pond is much greater in East Texas than in West Texas.

Also, can you expand your satellite view and topo map view and examine some of the nearby ponds? If you see several ponds that have 10:1 drainage area to pond size that gives you a working estimate. If it is 25:1, then you may have to reduce the size of your pond unless you really want to do a lot of dirt work to direct the surface water flows on your property.

I agree with esshup about moving down slope in the central gully for a pond location. (The farther you go down slope, the more water will be available to your pond.) Just inside your SE property boundary (with a little margin) would collect the most water.

Also, a swale to the SW that diverts all of the water from the next gully over to the SW could potentially add a lot of additional surface water runoff to your pond's watershed.

Good luck on your pond project!

The property is in East Texas, west of Elkhart. Here is a zoom out with 3 other ponds I found in the area. Two half acre and 1 1 acre. I may have to reduce the size of the pond.

Can you see those ponds from the road? If so, did they stay mostly full during the drought? Those would be good signs (though not proof) that you have decent soils to make a pond and enough rain to keep it mostly full.

Also, your land is steeper. A steeper slope causes MORE surface water run off (if all other factors are equal).

You do not HAVE to clear the trees in your watershed, but woods generally have a little less surface run off than grasslands. If you do clear some of the trees in the watershed, that might be part of your first priorities. On steep land, you want to have grass established before the rains fill your pond or the silt will steal some of your depth.

It is difficult to build the perfect sized pond due to all of the complex variables. However, if your pond is initially too large for the supporting watershed, then pushing up some swales to direct more water to the pond can be done after a few years of observing your conditions.

Another option would be to build a little forage/grow out pond upslope in the same gully as your main pond. If you do get a damaging drought, you can seine that pond and drain the remaining water to supplement your main pond.

Just throwing out more ideas while you are still in the planning stages.

Thank you for all the great ideas. This is a new area for me, so not sure how the pods do. I'll talk to the neighbors once I get the place!. Another issue, I was just reading the websoil report and it seems bedrock is shallow in this soil type (39 to 44 inches). But the other 3 ponds in the area are also in this soil.
I guess first thing to do is to dig some holes to see if bedrock is that shallow in that area, then we will see.
The rest of the numbers look good, to the uneducated like myself.. Clay content is at 41%, Ksat at 4 but slope and bedrock may be difficult to overcome.

I am amazed at how good the data usually is for the U.S. soil surveys. Those people did an excellent job of projecting the actual distribution of soils from limited sampling.

However, they did not dig test holes on your land, so their "depth to bedrock" numbers are general estimates. I agree with your excellent idea to dig some test holes!

Your 41% clay content is certainly good news. That is typically sufficient to provide a pond seal. With good clay you have the ability to excavate part of your pond depth AND build an embankment to impound even more water. Basically, if you have a good pond location that is 6' to bedrock, you can excavate to rock, backfill with a 1' deep clay blanket, and then build a dam that is 5' above the original ground level to create a pond that is 10' deep.