Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction socal newbie - testing the waters...

first post. seems like a great resource and wealth of knowledge. i am very green, i don't even own a piece of property, yet. just beginning my education on how to choose the right property, design and build a pond. socal is a tough place to consider this project, drought and what will probably prove to be overly restrictive water regulation

i would be eager for anyone that has experience building or someone that owns a pond in so. california to point me in the right direction.

thanks in advance for what i know will be a valuable education!

Welcome, pond~ering.

There are some great folks on here from socal, I'm sure they will be along directly!

Lots of good info here, don't be shy, and dig in...

enjoy your trip to pondimonium.

Hopefully JHAP, Jeff has a pond, will see this and can shed some light on it.

Welcome to the forum. Where in So. Cal.? I used to live near the Bonsall Bridge in O'side.

The best, quickest and cheapest way to start is to contact the Pond Boss office and order Bob Lusks book "Perfect Pond...Want One?". It covers just about everything you're asking.

Temecula, but the property I'm looking at for the pond is in Eastern Anza, near the Anza-Borrego area.

HA! I know both areas. I used to shoot at a trap range in Anza, and had a friend that lived in Temecula.

Unfortunately I cannot help out that much with this discussion. My pond is in Northern California and I haven't built a pond (my pond was already on my property when I purchased it).

I would suggest that you research what permits are required in order to build a pond in the county (most likely San Diego County since that covers the majority of the Anza Borrego area) in which the property is located.

Water is going to be a huge issue for a pond in Anza Borrego. The evaporation rate in the summer in Anza Borrego is extreme. So you will need a lot of supplemental water in order to sustain a pond.

I found this tidbit while googling around...

Rainfall and Climate of the California Deserts: In all areas, the potential evaporation far exceeds the average precipitation. In 1975, at the United States Date Gardens at Indio, for example, total precipitation amounted to only three inches (76mm), while free evaporation (from an open pan) was 112.96 inches (2869 mm), more than forty times the years of precipitation.

It's going to be tough to keep up with that level of evaporation. I'm not saying it can't be done, heck we have one member here that has a SMB pond in Arizona but I think you'll be looking at a fairly expensive venture.

Thanks JHAP. Good info, and OBTW, I thoroughly enjoy your posts, including the welcome aboard post for us newbies. the property is in Riverside County, it's at/about 3000-4000 ft elevation, with lots of natural watershed from the surrounding elevations. I expect your predictions about expense are probably true... but, then again,it's california, everything is too expensive. I realize I've got lots of research and homework still to do - including talking to the local USDA and others for soils info, etc.

It may be a long road...

thanks again!

You are quite welcome and thank you for the kind words.

Having a lot of natural watershed will definitely help.

If you find a property you are interested in make sure that you post photos of the property along with topography maps. The experts here are great at looking at this type of information and giving you advice and input.

Being a bean counter I'm never quite sure whether I'm holding a topo map right side up or upside down. So when surrounded by folks looking at a topo map I just keep pointing at places on the map and say things like "Wow look at that" or "hmmmm you might have to do something about that" that way folks are sure I don't know what I'm talking about.