Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Silt catch pond or buffer strip?

My pond construction is starting soon and I can't wait! The contractor and I have it roughly laid out, but will need some fine tuning before he starts. One question I can't decide on is whether to use a catch pond to limit silt from working into my pond or to just relly on the grass buffer strips. My pond will be 1 acre and will be primarily fed water by two valleys. Both are more gentle to moderate sloping than steep. One runs through nothing but pasture and a knee high broam, all of which I own and can control. The other feeder runs through a neighbors corn and bean fields that I obviously have no control over, then through a 275' knee high broam grass strip leading into my pond. I'm not a big fan of silt ponds so I hope the grass strips are adequate. Do the 275'+ grass strips sound like adequate protection against silt run off? I've seen some nearby ponds use small silt trap ponds to capture silt but I'm not sold on them. The ones I'm familiar with are stagnant algae farms that appear to let more foul gunk into the ponds than they hold back. Any ideas?

With a grass buffer like you describe, I doubt you will have much silt problem, if any.

Your pond location sounds a lot like mine, except I have hardwood forest on two sides of mine. That size grass buffer should hold quite a bit of silt.

When we bought this pond several years ago, we had an incredible amount of silt and debris coming in from a pasture above us. I started with lots of grass seed, straw, and straw bales. That didn't always work, so I added some pretty big rock piles to further slow the water. That finally helped get the grass established.

During really big rains, I still had huge amounts of debris laden water washing in from the forested areas. I dug a small sediment pond within about 15 feet of the pond, and connected it to the main pond through a 10-inch culvert with baffles. About 150 feet above that, I dug a pond that is about 15 x 30 feet, and about 6-7 feet deep. That really slowed the water down in days of rain.

The remaining forest area of significant sediment wash-in will get turned into a small forage pond connected to the main pond through a culvert with baffles.

My pond now has extremely little sediment washing in. My pond water remains very stable and clean.

Good luck,
Ken

Although I know absolutely nothing about whether or not a second pond will help with your silt situation as opposed to a grass buffer strip I can offer you this:

Pond Boss Forum Manual, page 8, Section 5, subsection a(1):

Two ponds are always better than one pond. Three ponds are better than two. Four ponds are fantastic. Five is borderline excessive but still highly recommend.

This sounds like an adequate buffer to me. However, if you want to be sure, there is a free soil loss program called RUSLE2 (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation) which helps you predict soil loss based on soil type, slope, vegetation type, and several other factors. You can also plug in different cover crops or erosion BMP's to see what will be most effective for you. I've only used it on California soils & veg. but I'm pretty sure that the entire U.S. is covered since it is sponsored by NRCS. There is a learning curve but it's fun to play with once you get the hang of it. Just do a Google search for RUSLE 2.