Originally posted by Sandbox:
I would love to see that kind of runoff.
Sandbox, Runoff has two faces, especially in East Texas.....and the face not usually seen can get rather ugly in our area. We can get some absolutely incredible rainfall amounts which can and will overwhelm any pipe system and sometimes even natural spillways....with predictable effects on the dam.
Knowing this full well, when I built my 4 acre pond, the chosen location had only about 3 acres of watershed. The NRCS said it would never fill or if it did would never hold water in most of the pond. For 6 years now it has been mostly full dropping only about two feet during the recent two years of drought, but more importantly has weathered several "100 year" rain events during that time....events which would have overwhelmed the dam in almost any location on my property with substantial watershed.
Just this year alone we had 11.5 inches in one day...imagine that as 12 feet of water runoff. No pipe system will handle that and even two good spillways will be tested as well. Before that Rita dumped about 12-13 inches in 18 hours and before that we've had 36 inches over a three day period.
If you followed "the book", my 4 acre pond would have never been built....on the other hand, if you followed "the book" and built it with 100 acres or so of watershed, it would not be here today.
