The pond will have both a huge volume of reserve and a nice spillway over a paved driveway. The dam will be 500' across, end to end. (Look at the 2nd picture down in my post above) The terrain could basically be described as a big shallow bowl with a spring running through it. There is about 9' of fall across 1000'. In this picture, you are looking about 1000', 9 feet rise in elevation.
In order to have it deeper than a mudhole, I am hauling about an average of 7 acres by 3-4 feet deep out of the center of the bowl. The specifications are for it to have (from the outside in) a 1:12 slope all the way around the bank so I can cut the grass. At the waterline, it will drop down 32" and slope gently down for about 6-8 feet where it will drop off to a minimum of 6' deep. This will be at the "shallow" end. The "deep" end, by the dam, it will be about 10" deep. The shallow area around the bank is so kids, dogs, and even I can get out easily.
The picture above was taken from the core looking up to the shallow end. I forget how many 10's of thousands of yards of dirt they figured were being moved. As you can see in the pictures in my earlier post, there is no shortage of good ol' red dirt here. There is plenty for the dam and then some. We packed the construction drain pipe along it's 100' length with red dirt and 2 seep collars. I don't expect a problem here.
Up closer to where the spring that feeds this pond comes up, there is a drive that has two 36" and one 60" pipe under it. I feel that the excess volume that this big shallow bowl can hold along with the tremendous amount of water that the 12" siphons can pump will be plenty. The sipllway over the driveway is so easy there no reason not to do it right. By the way, the spring is a good 20 feet higher than the pond. On the back side of the dam there is plenty of fall and the spring is wide. This spot was made for this pond.
I wouldn't think of going into something like this on a time-and-materials. I got a firm price from a guy I liked, and he has turned out to be great. He knows what he is doing. He is running three 963's, two big track hoes, and two Volvo off-road dump trucks. He says he can be done in 5 weeks, from the start. We agreed on $143,000. Coincidently, I just spent $7,000 on 12" pipe, so there's the budget. Oh yea, and $5,000+ for a civil engineer.
I don't have any plans for structure, with the exception of a huge pile of pallets and cinder blocks. I figure I can add more after it's built, but to do anything fancy right now would bust the budget. I am going to put in a dock/patio for a nice place to sit. I will dig deep all around it so people can dive in from the dock.
