Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site NRCS/SCS assistance in NC with pond design???

I don't think YP is native to NC but they are in some lakes in the eastern part of the state. I found 2 growers that list them but when I called both said they couldn't get them.
Back to the drawing board.

In NC the dam height maximum without and engineered design is 15' or 10 acre-ft of water. A number of years back NRCS was told to no longer offer dam design services in NC. Most county agents are aware of this and that is whay ypu got the answer you did, in some rare cases the counties either do not know or choose not to follow the guidance from the higher ups.

Finally making some progress on the pond front, I have right at a year into this project now...started clearing three acres for the pasture/pond addition fall of last year. Just started getting the slash burned off this fall, hopefully can start the dig this summer.

Sorry to bump a 12-year old thread, but its pretty relevant to my current situation, and I was hoping that some of the folks who were posting here are still around. My dilemma: My pond contractor contacted some guy (think he said it was a "soil guy"), who came back and said that I would need a permit to build a pond that's larger than 10,000 sq ft (less than a quarter acre). My proposed pond size is between .5 and .75 acres. I have looked over every website available, and I have found nothing that makes this claim. The only things I have found that say you need a permit are if you're intending to dam a stream or if it would affect a wetland or public waterway, which I'd need a 404 permit from the USACE and a 401 permit from the NCDEQ. It also says that a dam higher than 25' or whose impoundment capacity exceeds 50 acre-feet will require special permitting. (none of those apply to me)

Does anyone have any current permit information for pond building in North Carolina? I see ponds everywhere in my area, and I find it hard to believe that everyone went through a ton of red tape to get theirs... could be wrong, though.

Steve, call the local land development office

I tried, but no one answered their dam phone. Get it?! Their DAM phone?

I'll try again tomorrow.

There probably won't be anyone there until Monday.

Here's a list of all the offices in N.C.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/nc/contact/local/

Thanks, that's one of the numbers I called (for Area 1, since I live in Forsyth County). I called Friday around 2:30pm, a lady put me through to whoever she thought I needed, but it went to voicemail. I left a message, and as of today (Monday) at 3:15pm, I have not heard anything. I might just drive around and talk to some pond owners in the area and see what they did. From everything I've read, if the pond isn't going to affect a stream, public water, or wetland.... and if the dam is less than 25' tall and won't affect anyone's property if it were to fail, I don't need a permit. Someone else posted on here from NC, and said that if its less than an acre, you don't need a permit either (but that was a post from 2014).

I think you have put sufficient effort into obtaining information, permit, I would at this point go ahead and build the pond, they obviously are not paying much attention. if they show up tell them you tried to get ahold of them by calling and no success so you tried a different avenue.
A big thing I would add in that case would be a water line thru the base of the dam, whether you need it or not, that makes it a livestock watering pond, they are way more lenient, around here for farmers needing water sources for cattle then just calling it a recreational pond, farmers can get by with anything.

Its much easier to ask forgiveness then permission sometimes.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards that route. Also, I had a different contractor come out today to give me another estimate. He said he just got finished with a 3 acre pond near Charlotte, NC and before he left, 3 white trucks showed up and told him to get off his equipment immediately. They ended up fining the land owner for not getting a permit. But... that's for a 3 acre pond, and I'm only looking for about half an acre.

For anyone that was following this thread 12 years ago, I did reach out to Asgrd Pndkper (found his website/email address for his business) since he's also from NC, and he said he never ended up getting this pond done. He said he found out he didn't have good soil for a pond so he ended up making an orchard instead. And, he confirmed what I read, in that you don't need a permit if the surface area of the pond is less than an acre and the dam height is less than 15' (however, I read it was 25' so that might be a new policy they added after his inquiry).


You got that right.

Update: Finally got a hold of someone from the NRCS, and can confirm that this is good information as of September 2020. If your pond dam is less than 15' in height and the total volume of the pond is less than 10 acre-feet, you do NOT need a permit. An acre-foot is approximately 325,000 gallons of water, so 10 acre-feet is 3.25 million gallons. 10 acre-feet would be a one-acre pond that is exactly 1 foot deep, as an example, so you could have a 1 acre pond with an average depth of 10 feet and be at the limit, or a half-acre pond with a 20' average, which is pretty unrealistic. You could theoretically have a 1.5 acre pond with an average depth of 6' (more realistic) and still be under the limit. The surface area of the pond does NOT matter, only the volume of water does.

And of course, it can't affect a stream, wetland or public body of water, and can't put people's lives or property in danger if the dam were to fail.

Depending on the type of soil, you usually can't make the slope steeper than 2:1, and for safety reasons I recommend making the slope no steeper than 3:1 or 4:1 out to 3'-4' water depth, then make it as steep as the soil will allow without sloughing off.

Rough rule of thumb is that a ponds water volume in ac/ft is half the max depth x the surface area. i.e. a 1/2 acre pond 10' max depth has roughly 5 ac/ft water in it.

Yeah, that's about what I figured in my calculation. The people I've talked to all mention this "one acre rule', which would be true with an average depth of 10 feet, which is pretty high for the average 1 acre pond.

A 1/2 acre pond that's 20 feet deep holds the same amount of water as a 1 acre pond, that's 10 feet deep (roughly).