Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Large Pond Excavation

Hello everyone, my first post here.
I'm a long time pond enthusiast, and currently have a 3 acre pond. I'm looking to expand and add a new section in the future, that will add approximately 4.5 acres more. The pond will be an irregular shape with varying depths, but I have done all the calculations including the angles and slopes ect. Basically what I'm having trouble with is figuring out what size dozer I will need to get the job done properly and how long I should expect to have to hire someone for this job. In a nutshell, the pond will be 4.5 acres with average depth of 17ft ( my depths vary from 2ft to 20ft in some areas). Or another way of describing it is, if it were a rectangle it would be an area 330 ft. wide X 650ft. long X 17ft deep.
I've calculated the material to be removed should be about 135,000 cubic yards or 182,000 cubic yards of swell. This will be in a field of just grass, and the material will only be pushed about 100ft away. The first 5ft of depth is just loose sugar sand, after that it's hard clay....I'm not sure if it would be better to use a big dozer with rippers to get down in this clay or have a large excavator rip it up and then a dozer push it? Also I'm not sure what size dozer to be considering....maybe a D8? I dont know enough about the different dozer sizes and what they can or cant do, and how long to do a project like this? I'm trying to figure it out on my own as I'm not ready to hire someone yet....I'm just planning and trying to get a good idea of how much $$$ I need to save for this project.
Many thx, for any advice 😊

Once you get down to the clay, is it wet?

If wet, then you will not be able to excavate out of the hole with a dozer. A D8 dozer working in combination with a large excavator would probably work well in that situation.

If the clay is dry, then what is going to be the water source for your pond?


Just my $0.02 worth. *** I am DEFINITELY not an expert!


Good luck on your project!

That's a good question and I don't have a concrete answer for you. I was talking to my cousin and planning 12 ponds each 1/4 acre and 2 ponds each 1/2 acre, max depth on the 1/4 acre ponds was 5'-6', 1/2 acre ponds 9 feet, shaped like a paint roller tray with 3:1 sides, 1/4 of the length of the pond at 1:4 then dropping @ 1:3 to max depth and holding that as long as possible. Ponds would be around 120' long. He said to get a D8 with a ripper and it'd take 2-3 weeks. BUT he's run heavy equipment all his life and has spent many hours on a dozer. He worked in the worlds largest open pit coal mine in Wy, running those HUGE machines. The one dragline had a 100 yd bucket and the smaller one had an 80 yd bucket.....

It sure would be easy to make small forage/grow-out ponds shaped like a paint roller tray ... using a dragline with a 100 yard bucket!

Thx everyone for the replies....I'm new here so I don't really know how to tag members when I reply.
The clay hardpan is damp when first exposed, but will dry to near concrete hardness after about a day of full sun exposure....its challenging to dig, but holds water extremely well....down side is that it makes terribly muddy water which to prevent requires about 15 inches of sand to be brought back in to cover the clay before the pond can be filled.
As for filling the pond, there are no natural creeks, so it will be just rain and well feld. I am having a large irrigation well dug that will put out 500gpm....once filled it should only need to be topped off a couple times a year.
I grow bamboo and will have a large are of it around the pond ....so the well is for that too and the bamboo will grow over the displaced dirt when all done.

This might be a moot point if you can't equipment or don't have enough operators. The second crew I hired for my 1 acre pond had a D6 for grading and only moved dirt with 240 sized excavator and 25 ton rock truck. He explained to me that he can move 2-3 times as much marterial loading and hauling versus pushing it with a dozer.

He didn't have to go far (250 feet one way) but made crazy fast work with the big rock truck. Not to mention if you get into a different material, you might want to separate and spread elsewhere.

HTNFSH2,

I think that would be the most efficient method for my upcoming pond project. However, I want maximum efficiency while spending that much money for heavy equipment.

Did you watch their operations? How did they get by with only ONE rock truck? (Basically, what did the excavator do while the rock truck was dumping?)

I tried not to be that hovering homeowner, but I love to watch heavy machinery and asked a bunch of questions. Plus I've a little bit of experience. The hoe was digging and creating loose piles of material while the trucking was running and dumping. The main foreman/owner ran the hoe and the dozer. He could load 8-10 54" buckets in about 2 minutes. There were two main sites they had to dig borrow pits and set up the route where the rock truck only used forward and reverse. Never once turning the truck around and wasting time.

Very smooth and efficient once the plan of attack was figured out.