Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Old dam washed out, lost our pond

Hello! I'm happy to find this forum. My husband's dad built our pond in the 70s. Time goes forward, trees grow up, we're too busy to keep up on the land, but the pond was our refuge for fishing and swimming. The tree roots pushed up the culvert, and now the dam is washed out.

We have a backhoe and my husband would never hire someone. I'm trying to learn ahead of time so this doesn't happen again. He filled it with dirt and leftover concrete but it washed away. To get behind the dam, we'll have to take out a bunch of trees so it'll be a project. I think the soil is clay back there. A small creek feeds the pond and now the pond has overflowed our other creek so we can't even drive back there until it dries out and we fix that.

I tried attaching pictures and it wouldn't let me. Any thoughts are appreciated!

Welcome to Pond Boss! Sorry to hear about losing your pond.

Starting with the basics. Essentially, no earthen dam can survive being overtopped by running water. You must have an outflow pipe that is sized to handle most rain events.

Since a small creek feeds the pond, it is likely that building a correctly sized outflow pipe is cost prohibitive. In that situation, you need an outflow pipe AND an emergency spillway (that usually goes around the dam).

Read the forum guidelines on how to post photos. Then keep posting as you figure out more questions to ask. There are lots of experts that post here that will help you get fixed back up.

Good luck on getting your pond back!

Thank you! We still have the old culvert pipe, I think it's intact. But the tree roots pushed it almost vertical. So those trees will go and we'll have to keep up on it. When people say "it must be nice to live in the country" they don't see this part of it! You gotta have time to keep up on things, much less enjoy them. But we'll get it done!

Good news on the old pipe being intact. Be sure to measure the diameter. How big of a pipe you have to wrestle around will change the advice.

I would recommend reading a few threads about anti-seep collars. If you get the pipe installed correctly the first time, that will save you lots of anxiety in the future.


P.S. I consider my time doing "hard" labor at the farm as a better version of doing a gym workout for my health. Seeing a patch of invasive trees cleared up at the end of the day is much more rewarding than seeing some number rollover on the treadmill or stair-climber!

Also when it comes to trees, the saying "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!" holds true. Get them when you can pull them out by hand. I usually spot one or two when I am walking around the pond, usually willows or poplar trees. For larger stuff, I have a manual brush puller which is a 7' long bar with pair of pulling teeth on the end. Despite being a heavy bugger, it winds up being kind of fun, especially when you lean on it hard, and heat the tap root snap down deep and you know you've got it.