Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site New Pond Site in Oregon

Well, I put a picture page together. We purchased 25 acres on a hillside last year part of which contains a nice draw with seasonal runoff.

Western Oregon is rainy 8-9 months of the year and awfully dry they remainder. I, unfortunately, will have to go with some sort of a liner. We are in the process of excavating the homesite about 300' uphill from the pond site and the soil is decomposed sandstone. On the plus side, they really know how to do liners here because they get a lot of practice. Generally they have the liner over some sort of felt and about 6" of gravel over the liner.

You can see pictures of the pondsite here:

http://HalfBarnRanch.photosite.com

Building permits took about 7 months due to Forestland Zoning. There are 3 different permits to have a pond in Oregon (collect water, store water, use water). Any run off from buildings or concrete, etc I own outright. It'll be interesting. The pond I envision will be less than an acre (2/3, 3/4?) but getting as close to 9 acre feet as I can. There is a threshold at 9.2 acre feet where the application process is even more difficult and dam height constraints (and anything else they can think of) kick in. Needless to say, I am working with a planner.

This won't be a quick (or easy) one, but I did want to share the pondsite with the forum and perhaps make your day a little better knowing that you didn't have to jump through all of these hoops to have a pond!

I like our property, I'll love it when it has a pond.

Do you know what kind of fish you will be able to stock, given the area of Oregon you are in?

LMB, BG and maybe even Trout are not a problem. I've got 2 or 3 suppliers within an hour.

From what I understand CC may be a problem, not that I would put too many in.

Actually my preferred choice would be Smallmouth Bass over LMB and that may be a little trickier.

It'll be a multipurpose pond (irrigation, recreation, fire suppression, fishing). I will delay constructing it in favor of making it larger.