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#141706 12/16/08 11:41 AM
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My parents have about 50 acres that had a large pond on it when they bought the land. The pond was built by the previous owner by widening out and damming up a wet-weather creek. The lake was long and maybe 200 feet across. It narrowed then split at the end opposite the dam where two dry creeks border a wedge-shaped island/peninsula. The land is mostly sand and the pond would shrink down to about half it's normal size in the summer if we were in drought conditions, but the deepest end never completely dried up.

About 5 years ago we had a very large rain storm that dumped nearly 15 inches in about an hour. The dam on a a neighbor's pond up one of the creeks collapsed and the resulting flood was enough to collapse our dam. As things settled down a bunch of sand was dumped into our pond. I'm currently in the process of pushing that accumulated sand out of the pond bottom. Once I've got the pond back to it's original depth then I'm going to start rebuilding the dam.

The old dam was definitely not wide enough to hold back the amount of water that the pond was capable of accumulating, and there was no spillway. The old dam was built along the edge of a seam of sandy red clay that crosses our property. The clay is not very high quality and probably 99% of the soil on the property is too sandy to use for building the dam. I'm planning on trying to get as much of the red clay as I can to use for the dam, but I'm not sure if it's pure enough to really hold up under stress.

I'm planning on building the dam back nearly twice as wide as it was previously. It was originally barely wide enough to drive a vehicle over. It had a 12" culvert that extended through the dam for runoff. The way water ran into the pond, if we got a large rain the dam always overflowed. I'm planning on making a spillway on the end with the gentlest slope. At present I'm not planning on running any pipe or culvert through the dam itself. I will try to get out and take some pics of the current state of things in the next couple of days.

Before I do any serious work on the dam I thought I'd come to the experts and see if anybody has any suggestions or comments.

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Hi BrentD, welcome to Pond Boss. Hang on one of the experts will be along shortly.


JHAP
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IIRC, the clay content can be as low as 15%. Another couple solutions may be the addition of bentonite and/or ESS-13. Both are rather pricey, but done correctly, work.

Also, contact your local NRCS agent for their opinion. The NRCS is a very valuable and free Federal Gov. services!



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Our NRCS agent came out and looked at the remains of our dam, and one that our neighbor built earlier this year that is obviously not going to hold (it's only about 3-feet wide, made entirely of sand and is already eroding on the back side). He didn't really give any useful advice. Pretty much shrugged his shoulders said "Yep. That's a mess alright. Gonna need to get you a dozer. Good luck." and then left.

We had NRCS do some erosion control work for us shortly after we bought the land and the local agent called in people from the state office to look at the land and give us advice rather than do it himself. I get the impression he pretty much just mans the office and helps people shuffle paperwork back and forth between the state office. He doesn't do much filed work himself except to verify that a problem does indeed exist before calling in the advisers.

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BrentD, you might want to contact Otto for some consulting advice. He's a wizard when it comes to pond construction. Hopefully he'll see this thread and chime it. I believe he does paid consulting as well as actual heavy equipment work.


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 Originally Posted By: BrentD
Our NRCS agent came out and looked at the remains of our dam He didn't really give any useful advice. Pretty much shrugged his shoulders said "Yep. That's a mess alright. Gonna need to get you a dozer. Good luck." and then left.


NRCS assistance in pond building varies widely. That has been proven right here on the PB forum over the years. This, combined with the continual pressure of lessened funding moves some offices further and further from pond construction participation. I'm not surprised by the reaction you got. Here in Illinois, the NRCS offices I have dealt with were all super, friendly, and helpful...within their limits. They would help with some very preliminary engineering of a pond, but turned it off after that. They don't have the time or the money. They have to focus what resources they do have on projects with the higher ROI.

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Welcome to the forum.
Lots of things to say but
First. If the dam up stream is weak it will end up back on your place after the next big rain. You do not want that.
Second; The most important part of a dam that has lots of water comming into it is the spillway, make it wider that you think you need. When you said you where cleaning out the upper end are you doing it with your owne equipment or do you have some equipment hired? Keep us posted and send pictures.

Otto

otto #141997 12/18/08 09:10 PM
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I'm pretty much planning the upstream dam collapse into my rebuild plans. It's roughly 5-feet from our fence maybe 8 feet high and about 4 or 5 feet thick at the bottom, probably 2 feet thick at the top and spans maybe 12 feet. I just don't see how it could possibly hold up. I can just ding our pond deep enough to handle the extra dirt that will come in when it does fail.

Given how it looks right now, it might actually slowly erode rather than fail all at once. That would be kinda nice. My worry is that he might have built the dam simply to cover up a trash pile. He was using the other branch of the creek to dump his limbs, big chunks of broken concrete and apparently a couple of water heaters back before the big flood that took out our dam. All of that garbage ended up on our land and we're still finding pieces of it 6 years later.

As far as the cleaning up goes, I've been doing it myself so far. We bought a Mitsubishi BD2G dozer back in June and just bought a 43 horse Montana tractor with a front end loader. I'm hoping to start getting some help from my dad now that we've got a tractor with a heated and air conditioned cab for him to ride in. I know the equipment is a little small for the overall job, but this is a project that is going to take up many many weekends anyway. Figured we might as well buy what equipment we could afford, take our time and do the job right rather than rent a bunch of equipment and have to worry about getting it done on a deadline.

BrentD #142174 12/21/08 12:46 AM
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I went out and took some pics of my mess today. Before I get down to the pics I should probably explain a bit about how our original pond was structured. As stated before, two wet weather creeks enter the west end of our property and about 75 yards in they converge. The original owner of the property built two dams across the resulting creek. The primary dam was constructed on the edge of a seam of red clay that runs through our property. The soil for the dam came from the seam of red clay. The area where the clay was scooped out created a secondary pond that we refer to as the overflow pond. The original owner then scooped out additional clay from the overflow pond and built up a second dam about 10 feet from the east fence line. (We purchased the property on the other side of that east fence a couple of years before the dam collapsed.) As you will see from the pics, both dams were breached. I tend to refer to the main dam as simply "the dam" and the overflow dam as "2nd dam". The pipes you will see in the 2nd dam do not actually go anywhere, though both ends of one or two of them were visible when we purchased the property, they had since been covered over. We were not aware there were more than 3 pipes until the back side of the dam washed away and left them all visible.

Some of the pics are a bit large, so I'm going to just post links to my photobucket account rather than use image tags.

To start off with, here is a west to east panorama of the area from the point where the creeks converge to the primary dam. There is an old hand-dug well in the bottom of the pond area. In relation to this pano, the well is about 30 yards forward from where I'm standing when I took the series of shots for this pano. The part of the well casing above ground level was broken off and a concrete cover fitted over the well, held in place with rebar driven into the ground around it and bent over the cover. The well had been covered over with sand since some time after we put the cap on it and has not been visible until today. I noticed that the cap was partially visible today and looked like it might be slightly ajar, but I did not have time to thoroughly investigate today. I plant to fill in that well before rebuilding the dam as the water contains too much iron to be usable for anything. We have a better well for our small cabin and cattle troughs that extends down 450 feet to the second water table.

(Pics are placed roughly in the order that that they were taken as I walked east, then circled up to the north than back down through the breach in the main dam and back west, up the steam-bed/pond-bottom)

Here's the first West-East Pano: West to East Pano 1

This is a pic standing in the old stream bed / pond bottom looking toward the dam: Toward Dam 1

From the same spot looking back upstream toward where the creek splits: Upstream View

Approaching the breach in the main dam from the south west: Breach Edge

Here's a west to east pano taken from a spot on the south end of the dam: West to East Pano 2

Cross section of the breach: Cross Section

Standing in the breach looking upstream and back downstream towards the second dam

Pano of the back side of the breach in the main dam. A slightly closer pano of the back side.

This pic was taken standing on the southern end of the main dam looking across the overflow pond to the second dam.

Approacing breach in 2nd dam

Closer to the 2nd dam

Close up cross section of the 2nd dam breach.

(Not sure how many links are allowed in a single post so I'm going to continue the pics in another post.)

BrentD #142175 12/21/08 01:15 AM
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For this one I was standing behind the breach in the 2nd dam looking back upstream (west) through the holes in both dams.

This pano is an east to west series taken from the north-east end of the 2nd dam.

This one is a slightly jumbled pano looking down below the 2nd dam from the same spot the above pano was taken. The arc created by swiveling the downward pointing camera around the tripod made stitching the shots together rather interesting.

Here is a shot of the overflow pipes sticking out the back side of the second dam. For some reason the pipes angle away from the pond back towards the south-west.

This series of shots was taken from a point uphill to the north of the overflow pond. It spans from the 2nd dam to the primary dam. and gives a nice view of the valley where the pond was built.

This is the only overflow pipe through the primary dam.

And these last four pics are just some close-up soil examples:

Soil Example 1. This is a close-up of the red clay area that can be seen to the left of the overflow pipe in the above picture. This is fairly representative of the soil in the area between the 2 dams.

Soil Example 2 This is just a random square of ground in the area that used to be the bottom of the overflow pond.

This shot and this one are what the ground looks like in the are that was the bottom of the main pond.

I missed this pano of the overflow pond area in my previous post. This is was taken standing behind the south end of the main dam and panning towards the 2nd dam.

I know it's a lot of pics, but I figured the more visual info I give you the better advice I'd get. My current plan is to eliminate the 2nd dam altogether and re-grade the land so that it slopes more gently from the base of the main dam to the fence line. I've got to shape in a path for the creek so that it meets back up with it's natural streambed at the fenceline roughly where the breach in teh 2nd dam is. I plan on building the primary dam back slightly shorter and wider than it currently is. Not sure what I'm going to do about primary spillway yet. May end up putting a culvert or two in the end of the dam where the breach occurred. I plan on flattening out the slope at the north end of the primary dam into an emergency spillway that will gently wrap around the north end of the dam then down and away from the primary dam's back side.

Now, if there's anybody left not suffering from information overload, I'd like to hear your thoughts, opinions, recommendations, etc. on the plan. If you have any thoughts on the old well and what would be the best way to fill it in I'd like to hear that as well.

BrentD #142178 12/21/08 08:00 AM
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Great thread, nice job with the photos and descriptions.

Experts, what say you?


JHAP
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...Hedley Lamarr (that's Hedley not Hedy)
jeffhasapond #142182 12/21/08 09:21 AM
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I'm not one of the experts but have a couple of thoughts. Hope Otto corrects me on my stupid ideas.

I figure I would have hauled the trash back to the neighbors front yard. Gratis. Otto probably won't disagree with this one.

If I understand it right, he has another junky dam 5 ft from your property line. I believe I would tear it out. It just might impound enough water to be a problem (flood) to your new dam/property when it fails. At best, it would give you a lot shallower water hole.

If you have enough clay, make sure it is well mixed with the sand. A carelessly mixed strata of sand can be an aquifer that creates a brand new washout. If you don't have enough clay, either buy some or forget the whole deal. Been there/done that and have the scars and unpleasant memories.

I PERSONALLY would tear out the old dam and reuse/remix the soil you get out of it with new clay or sandy loam. I don't have a lot of faith with patching the holes of failed dams.

Like Otto says, make preparations for a 100 year flood of Biblical proportions. Even in Texas, we could get enough rain to be about 1,000 years ahead of the curve on 100 year floods.

Last edited by Dave Davidson1; 12/21/08 09:22 AM.

It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
Dave Davidson1 #142225 12/22/08 11:13 AM
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 Originally Posted By: Dave Davidson1
If I understand it right, he has another junky dam 5 ft from your property line. I believe I would tear it out. It just might impound enough water to be a problem (flood) to your new dam/property when it fails. At best, it would give you a lot shallower water hole.


Yeah, forgot to take pics of that. Will try to do so on the next trip out. I'd be real hesitant to tear his dam out as he's a bit of a jerk (understatement) and would probable start screaming lawsuit. We already had the NCRS guy look at it and he said it didn't violate any laws so we don't really have any recourse. Although I guess I could take up the hobby of experimental rocketry and let one get away.... For the time being I take comfort in knowing that he made the top of his dam level with a very flat grade, and there is no spillway. The dam is only about 2-feet wide at the top and maybe 3 or 4 feet wide at the bottom if memory serves. I haven't been to the fence line to look at it in a while.

 Originally Posted By: Dave Davidson1
I PERSONALLY would tear out the old dam and reuse/remix the soil you get out of it with new clay or sandy loam. I don't have a lot of faith with patching the holes of failed dams.

Like Otto says, make preparations for a 100 year flood of Biblical proportions. Even in Texas, we could get enough rain to be about 1,000 years ahead of the curve on 100 year floods.


Tearing out the old dam is definitely in my plan. Even though I didn't know much when I started planning for this project I knew better than to try to path the old dam. As for the floods of biblical proportions, we've had 2 of those since we've owned the property. The first one filled that entire valley where the pond sits and BOTH the main dam and the overflow dam were completely underwater by as much as a foot. The distance between the back or our cabin and the pond was reduced from about 100 yards to maybe 50 yards and the little shed that is about a 100 feet from the ponds edge almost became a dock.

The second flood happened about 8 years after the first, and it's the one that took out the dams.

I'm a little concerned about the clay content of the soil. even that red stuff seems awfully sandy and will readily erode if left exposed for too long. Might have to get someone out to do a soil analysis if it's not on the paperwork from where NCRS did some erosion control work for us shortly after we bought the land.

BrentD #142234 12/22/08 02:12 PM
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You will notice that I said that I would tear the neighbors dam out. I didn't recommend that you do it. Lets just say that I would hope for it to fail before it gets too much water impounded.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
Dave Davidson1 #142550 12/27/08 04:42 PM
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I would bet a quarter that cattle or other critters standing in the shade of those trees on the dam led to the ponds demise.
Cattle like to stand in shade, wears the top of dam down, water goes over dam, dam washes out.


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zhkent #142677 12/29/08 05:48 AM
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I am like Dave what I would like to do is not what I would tell you to do. But you can be sure that the poorly built dam up stream will be in your pnod at some time.

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The odd thing about our dam is that over the years it has actually risen in height. When we first bought the land, water would flow around the right-hand side of the dam if the water got higher than the culvert could handle. I guess that the water slowed down enough as it went over that side of the dam that sand and other stuff dropping out of the water raised that side of the dam and the overflow moved closer to the center. The flood that broke the dam, however, was one of those biblical floods. The water was at least 7 feet higher than the highest point on the dam. If you notice that hill on the right-hand side of the main dam in the pano of the main dam, the water was actually up to the crest of that hill before the dam broke.

Why that particular spot chose to collapse is anybodies guess. There were a few willow trees that had come up on the water side of the dam to the left of the breach, but they had all died off several years ago. The only other tree that is sort of on the dam is that tall cottonwood on the backside of the dam about 8 feet from the culvert.

BrentD #142794 12/30/08 07:02 AM
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As rule if water goes over a dam it will wash the dirt away, if it did it before it will do it again. I would plan for that as much as you can.


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