Hello everyone,

My first post or question on here was regarding my pond not holding/losing water. Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for. We have received over 19 inches in about 3 weeks around where I live and my pond grew to over 3 acres and I was excited. However the last storm that came through caused another flash flood which caused the dam to spill over, which to my knowledge has never happened in the past. This over-topping has started to eat away or erode into the dam at approximately the middle of it. From the reading I have tried to do it is recommended to repair damage as quickly as possible. I work at a factory and have free reign to concrete rubble, rocks, and heavy clay filler dirt that we have piled up in the yard from installing new machines and factory lines. I have contacted the NRCS in my area and will be emailing them some pictures and they will assign it to an engineer that might be able to give me some help. In the meantime, is there anything I can do with this clay filler dirt and rubble to help patch or repair the damage already done to the dam? After I snap some pictures I will upload them here so everyone can see. Wish me luck!

What about placing sand bags in front of the erosion to redirect any water that might come to that area.

I second the sandbags. Direct the water from topping the dam to the emergency spillway. You DO have an emergency spillway, right??

Get a blade on that spillway and cut it deeper!

This^^^^

And if you do, I think the middle of the dam is a curious place for it??

To be completely honest with you all I know very little about ponds and dams. I took an aerial picture of the pond from google maps and marked what I do know about the pond to help y'all see what I'm working with. I have found no pipes or culverts anywhere I have looked. What I have done is stack some square hay bales around the affected area to help slow the water/erosion but if we get another flash flood those will be useless. After stacking the hay bales and taking a step back and looking at it, I feel more confident about the dam though. I have very heavy veg all over the front and back of the dam and the area where the water had spilled over doesn't look too bad considering how much water I saw spilling over it.

There isn't always a spillpipe or culvert. Most ponds that I am familiar with that utilize a pipe as the primary means of discharging excess water also utilize an emergency spillway, which around here is usually a spot, or section of the dam (almost always at the end, or corner of the dam), that is lower than the rest. Its purpose is to provide an escape for water should the primary exit (pipe) become clogged, or be unable to keep up with the flow. Rather than allowing the water to cascade over the top of the dam, this built in "low spot" makes sure it goes where you want it to.

Two of our ponds utilize a spillway as the only means to discharge water. They've worked alright for 40 years, so whoever built the things must've had a pretty good idea of what's what. They are however, in the corners of the dams, not the middle.

Tell you what, the more I read and learn about pond design and management the more interesting I find it. From what I've heard from the neighbors in my area, the pond is a natural low spot in between the hills that would always fill up with water but not much(small pond). It is my understanding that the pond never had a dam constructed and if so it was decades ago. They said that the pond naturally filled but would dry out during the summer or during drought years. About 5 years or so ago the original land owner brought equipment back there after a wildfire and completely renovated the pond and built up a rather large dam(to me anyways) between the two hills. From what I can tell, if you look at my picture, in yellow at the bottom left, this area appears to be where water leaves or exits the pond, which is what looks like the lowest part of the dam(the low spot). I really don't think I have any other means of discharging water in my setup. Maybe this setup will work perfectly for many, many years, I don't know. But if I need to put extra devices or mechanisms in place to ensure this I want to plan it out and get the ball rolling because having a pond to fish every morning/day would be a slice of heaven.

Look into a siphon drain. You can put one in there easily (I think) without doing too much digging.

The most important thing to do is get water out of your pond. Drop the level well below the cut. Can do an over-the-top siphon, a trash pump, anything but you don't want more water going through there. If you have not stocked fish, I'd be tempted to drain it way down. When someone comes back to repair, they won't want water in there anyway.

Agree to get the water out ASAP; fish or not. If it washes out, you lose all of the soil.

Well guys, before I could get back there with a pump to drain the pond yet another @#$!ing storm came and sat on top of us for 8 hours and dumped another 10 inches of rain which destroyed the road I live on and washed the dam out. It's really bad. I will upload some pictures during lunch. Kind of makes me sick but at least my house is OK(knock on wood)

Sorry to hear that. I hope that one day you will be able to reconstruct and build a dream pond that will last a lifetime.

10 inches would flood and destroy most of us.

Here are some pictures of the damage. I also updated the aerial photo and marked the wash out area. Funny thing is, the place I thought the dam would fail isn't the place that it did.

Here's some before shots





Here's the aftermath













The last pic is the newly formed creek that now runs through my neighbor's backyard...what a mess

If it ever stops raining..what first steps should I be taking to make repairs/rebuild the dam? I am assuming I will need to drain the pond. Thanks for the help/advice everyone. Hopefully I can rebuild it better with more flood tolerance.

I feel your pain- I had a pond built last summer outside of Stroud and the damn broke last week... Whatever you do- dont wait!

You will want to lower the level some for repairs. A siphon can handle that pretty easily. A good track hoe operator can tie in the soils and repair the damaged area pretty quickly. Now would be a good time to make a siphon system permanent also...in case you get more 1000 year floods next month...

OK, I was under the impression that it would be impossible to make repairs while it is this wet but yall are saying get someone with a track hoe out here ASAP? If so I will start calling around to find someone. A permanent siphon system...can someone point me to some reference material/reading on how to construct a good siphon system and I'll start rounding up parts. Wow, really thought I'd have to wait until august or something to get things done.

Actually Rainman posted some good information about a siphon system. I will probably model one after his. I'll use it above ground(not buried) to drain the pond as low as I can. Then once the dam is repaired dig a trench and bury it for a more permanent install. Question is the spillway or spillways. Yall think I should go with a pipe spillway or a natural "earthen" spillway or both? Once I get home I'm going to go out and take some measurements so I'll know approximately how much material to buy. Thanks everyone for the much needed advice!

With most of the damage done, you may not need to be in a great hurry. In a couple of the pictures it looked like there was some kind of a liner am I seeing that correctly.

This will not make you feel any better but I also have pictures of dams that have failed in the recent floods. It makes me sick to my stomach.

Hey there Mike, Ya you were seeing that right. I was wondering about the liner myself. I've heard some might put a liner inside or up against the dam to help seal it but it looks pretty strange right? Sorry to hear about the damage to your dams. If we were neighbors I'd come over and help you out if I could. For me it took a few beers and a home grilled steak but I've made peace with all the damage out here, plus building the siphon is going to be a fun project for me to work on. I'd be very happy to not be in a hurry because I've got a roof to replace, driveways to repair and a slew of other work. Hope your family, house and animals are OK. Some out here lost some livestock and had major damage to there houses.

Walt, you are going to need heavy equipment there to do repairs. I'd strongly suggest at least a primary spillway and emergency, earthen spillway (if topography allows one).

The primary can be a pipe or well designed siphon...even a pipe primary, siphon secondary and an E spillway would not be overkill since you see what can happen in a big rain event.

Rex is right now is the time to look the whole lake over, make a plan for the next fifty years. It does not matter how good a dam is, if the spillway does not carry the water in a big rain we have nothing.

"the next fifty years" Oh ya, that's what I'm talking about. I want a dam that outlives me This weekend I'll be putting together a siphon system very similar to what rainman made and see how much water I can pump out. I found someone to operate the heavy machinery. Luckily one of my neighbors works in construction operating track hoes and bulldozers. I'm definitely going to have to haul in some dirt. On thing I noticed about the dam when I bought this place was that the top of the dam was a bit narrow, around 6 to 8 feet. I want to widen the top to at least 12 feet. I am going to do a lot of reading on here about spillways and emergency spillways. I'd like to have a setup with a siphon system, main spillway and emergency spillway. From what I can tell that is the setup most people go for. After this weekend I want to draw up a plan and post it here for yall to look over and critique. I'm very thankful for the advice yall have given me so far. Thanks everyone. I'll post updates after this weekend...fingers crossed

Seeing some fabric down within the dam, it makes me wonder if this has not happened before. The reason I say that is if a person had a breech they might have patched the breech, layered fabric over both the patched area and the adjacent portion of the dam, then covered the fabric with dirt. The thinking being the fabric could tie in the new patch with the old dam and the extra dirt over it would add strength.

May not be the case at all, but that is what I thought of when I saw the fabric down within the dam. Looks like something I might have thought of trying to fix a breech.

Walt You are starting in the right place---and in the right order BY MAKING A GOOD PLAN.

snrub The fabric is still bothering me a little bit also. We know it did not get there by accident.

I agree on the fabric, and wonder if it were a patch or if someone thought it would protect the core from roots invading.....

EDIT: After looking longer at the picture, I worry a builder may have just pushed trash as fill into the core rather than keeping clean soils/clay in it.

NRCS Booklet on ponds and pond design

If that is trash in the dam like Rex said that could explain why it washed out in the first place. Also that will make it very important to do an extra good job when the work starts---if it is trash you need to get all of it out.