Thank ya, Rocky-T...your approval means alot to me. I agree that perhaps...just perhaps....I underestimated the run-off. I'll tell ya why.
I estimate, with the assistance of the local NRCS office, that we are working with about 55 - 60 acres of run-off. I have 3 main water feeds. 2 of them are draws that are reasonably easy to calculate acccurately. The third source is the wild card. It is the 8" clay field tile that I have been whinin' about on the tile overflow thread . I was pretty sure of the zones that this tile drained. Right after we purchased the property, I was able to find and contact the 80 year old guy that grew up on it, and the surrounding 180 acres, since 1935. We talked on the phone for almost 2 hours...v cool history lesson. Anyway, he was certain that he knew of the only 2 inlets for the tile and he told me about where they are. He said that they are the old fashioned inlets that are built like a french drain. The opening is well below the depth of a disc, covered in filter gravel, and topped with soil. He said that the second inlet was added by him and his brother when they were kids. They tee'd it into the longer, already existing run. I walked the areas where these 2 inlets would reside and found no breaches in the surface. This leads me to believe that the water we receive should be well filtered. Then....this last weekend I find small sections of corn cob and husk pc jammed up in the pop-up fitting that I put on our end of this drain, the outlet. Hmmmmm.
I told my contractor about this drain when I first found it at the bottom of the big 'ol blow-hole. I told him that I measured the ID about 7.5". His first response was that it might drain a heck of alot of acreage. I asked why. He said that a 7" or 8" tile was normally installed to carry a correspondingly sized flow of water. He felt that it is possible that I am getting alot more water than the old timer lead me to believe. After seeing the corn waste, I gotta think he may be right.
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Lance...right on the money; we will see. When I first laid out the pond plan and shot the elevations, I wrestled with adding 2 additional feet of depth or passing on the depth to have about 6 more acres of drainage. It was a topographical ground truth and I had to make a decision. My valued PB mentors helped me make the correct choice of adding the 2 additional feet of depth. If my observations in the above paragraph are correct, it seals the deal.