I've found a property my wife and I both like(major feat in itself) but I have concerns in the fact that the entire property is on a slope. It's about 34 acres total. I met with a pond builder and was very impressed with him. He walked the property and was quite pleased with it and confident with the terrain and soil he was seeing that a 2-3 acre pond would stay full. This was the second place we looked at and he wasn't afraid to share his concerns about the first place.

Back to the slope concern though. Do you experienced gurus have any input on how this pond should look? I want something longer as opposed to a circle; some "character" if you will. Should this be put in parallel to the elevation lines or perpendicular to them? Parallel would catch more runoff but would have a much longer dam. I have confidence in the pond builder, I just want to make sure this pond looks natural, melts into the landscape, and is as troublefree as possible.

In the attached image, there was supposedly a spring that was located between the two lines that I drew. You can tell it cut a bit into the hillside. The slope goes downhill from east to west(right to left). I was thinking of putting the pond downhill of that area and taking advantage of the natural cut in the hillside. There's no sign of the spring any more.

Are we asking for major headaches in the future by putting a pond on the side of a hill?

an aerial or satellite view from google might help us see the lay of the land?

If there was a spring in the area that the pond will go, be aware that the spring doesn't only flow one way...... Check with the counties NRCS office to see how many acres of watershed in your area will support a 1 acre pond, and then go from there.

I figured the topo map would be better for that but if it helps here is an aerial view.

Not putting the pond on a spring is something I picked up from here at some point but thanks for the reminder. I've got the book and the subscription and am doing as much research as possible. Just haven't seen many people with the situation like this one.

If you could get the spring to flow on the surface and into the top level of your water, I wouldn't worry one bit about it. Otherwise, place the pond down hill of it. You may need to seal the pond basin really good, because you may hit some vein of that spring, but that shouldn't be killer.

I would ask your pond guy more questions. Does he think your scenario will cost more than normal? I would think a pond dug into a hillside would be cheaper than one that is not. You have a longer dam, but that dirt that comes out can be used for that. Not as good as a small dam in a ravine, but sometimes those have issues with creeks, water rights, etc.

Keep in mind that digging below(or anywhere around) a dormant/non-surfacing spring may expose the water flow again. I think this is where Fish N Chips was going when he refers to hitting some vein. I'm no expert, but I would certainly be concerned about putting a pond around a spring, dormant or not. You might end up with a nice inflow for the pond OR you might end up with a drain vein in the bottom. Things for you to learn about, maybe even do some exploratory dirt work. +1 on fish n chips advice regarding talking this over with your pond builder.

Those are sound points. I can add that the neighbor across the street has a one acre pond that he claims is only fed by a spring. He told me in the 30 years he's lived there(pond was existing) he's only had the pond level drop one foot in the worst of droughts. When I hear something like that it makes me wonder if the existence of a spring is really a concern or it could be a benefit. His pond is at an elevation of about 20 feet above where mine would be. This area supposedly has a large aquifer under it. There's a water bottling plant not far away that supposedly is here because of this aquifer.

Spring or no spring I had intended to have a sealed bottom pond. Relying on a spring to keep a pond full seems like a gamble and I'm not much into gambling when the stakes are high.

yes, that is what I was trying to say. If the pond is sealed properly, it won't let water out OR in. Best to have that spring flowing in from the top surface.

I still would not rely on a spring for the water source. Consider it a bonus.. Things change. Your pond being 20 foot below his could actually drain his more (relieving pressure point). Same goes for that plant. If they decide to pull more water, it could affect everyone else, without much recourse.

I spent a few hours yesterday doing a more thorough walk of the property. I found that the property isn't as sloped as the topo makes it out to be. There is a good bit of area that's relatively flat that would be in a good area to put the house and pond. Made me feel better about taking the plunge. When we finally start work on the pond I'll try to log it here.

I found that hillside ponds are one of the cheaper options to have dug since the materials can be mostly moved/pushed with a dozer a relatively short distance to form the dam apart from the keyway/core trench.

To mitigate the potential spring or vein issue, you could have the builder dig a core trench around the entire perimeter of the future pond and back-fill and compact good clay materials to make a tight seal all the way around. I suppose you could dig a test trench on the up-hill side in preparation of this feature, and see if you hit any seams along the way and know what to do for sure.

My pond was dug on a hillside, and we did hit some very low-flow seams that just stayed damp. It is possible they are the reason my pond leaks a little, but not intolerably so. I have blamed it on no compaction on my dam apart from a large dozer which isn't enough. My inflow is far higher than outflow, so the lowest I have gotten was 2.5-3 feet down last summer in a record drought.

This year it has not dried out enough to stop running out of the overflow. Rain, rain, and more rain.

As a note, I found that low water in the summer makes for a great opportunity to control cattails. Makes them easy to pull when you can stand on firm ground rather than pulling from a raft.

Thanks for the input. So just maybe the slope could play in my favor. Hard to imagine I would get lucky in some way. I guess it's bound to happen sooner or later.