I have an arroyo on my property in new mexico that I plan on constructing a 10’ wall dam across to retain water. The area is very sandy and full of prickly pear so i will most likely be using an RPE line with a geotextile underlayment to prevent intrusion by the prickly pear roots down the road.
I have a question as to the cinder block dam/retaining wall I plan on building. So long as it’s under 10-feet tall, i do not need an engineer’s stamp to create a water impoundment for my livestock and farming purposes according to New Mexico law. So, I want to make sure the method I use is sound for retaining the pond water to come after it is filled.
The area of the pond is roughly 80’ x 45’. After doing some online research, I seem to think that if I pound rebar through the holes of the cinder blocks and deep into the ground, and then backfill the cinder blocks with concrete as i build up the 10’ wall, that would be enough strength to hold back a pond that is 10’ deep at the dam but steadily gets shallower as it gets away from the dam (so that it will be like a beach entrance at the other end of the pond from the dam).
Does that sound like a solid enough construction method for this volume of water? Thanks in advance for your assistance!
