Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Principal spillway logic

and you can push a whole lot more when its moist clay that rides up over top of blade by a couple feet.........nice pics brettski.

Brettski,

Dang, that D6 high-trac looks good pushing up dirt! It makes my mind wonder with all the possibilies I could perform with one of those machines.

Keep the pictures coming and good luck.

Gator

I am off of work this week...vacation time...yeah, right. Each day is a commute to the pond project, spend/work about 6 or 7 hours, then commute back home. I'm somewhere between exhausted and thrilled.
I asked my dirt guy about the blade on the D-6. He says it's 11'-4" wide and called a "semi-U". The ends creating the "U" cup are perfect for not only rolling up yardage, but hooking onto tree stumps and draggin' trees. The bottom 2 corners are kinda pointy and dig into the root ball. He scratched his head and said that he remembers that blade catches 7 yards.

Da dam, she be done.
The entire pondsite was an ideal topo. The dam stretches between 2 hills that create a valley. We decided to clear the valley behind the dam, also, to provide more space to waste soil. This turned out to be a .7 ac zone. The bonus is an easily managed area with a nice, gentle 12:1 slope. This shot is from the back end of this zone, looking upward to the dam stretching left and right:

This next shot is standing on top of the finished dam grade (like you needed me to tell you that :rolleyes: ). I spec'd a 20' wide roadbed. This vantage point provides good reference for the grade of the zone behind the dam:

...and, finally, a shot looking from atop the dam, near center. The drain filter (vertical, black pipe) is visible some 20 ft below. The high site to the left is .22 ac where the sand beach and small pier will reside. Upper right, in the distance and around the point, a PU truck is parked on the proposed building site about 700 ft away.

Now, onto re-grading the draw that is directly adjacent to the end of the dam, installing a culvert and roadbed connecting the dam and the beach area. Then, back to the building site to pile up some more soil extracted from within the pond basin in front of it.

12:1 on the backside of the dam - that's gonna be a breeze to mow.

Brettski,

Thanks for the update and pictures. It's amazing to see the progress and how nice it looks.

Is your road going all the way around your pond? I think you said it's ending at one location and will be a dead end. I like to walk around mine and it's fun to take people for a ride around the entire area, not to mention being able to access the lake from every side.

Just curious,
Eddie

Mr Walker pays a generous compliment:
Many thanks, Eddie. The boss and I were discussing the enormity of the project, the results, and the costs. In the beginning, the plan was nothing more than a pond...a hole in the ground with water, located in the middle of the woods. Then I followed my better judgement, passed on DIY, and hired the more expensive contractor interviewed...the one with the local reputation. He has truly delivered. The results have turned into a mini State park. From this level, the $ pain is easier to stomach. At least that's my justification.
Yes, the road does end at the .22 acre beach zone. The balance of the pond shoreline perimeter (about 20 - 25% of it) follows an area where a neighbor home and property line is about 200 ft thru the woods. It is also location to a main feed draw. We decided to NOT remove any more timber in this area, allow the water to back up a couple of feet, and leave the pond portion shallow. This will be a nice wetland zone. A good compromise...lemonade from lemons, if you will. In return, I have opted for a small pier at this beach zone, the dead end of perimeter travel. This, combined with the main pier at the building site, will provide another interesting alternate to commute to the beach and knoll; the Liberty ferry.

Brettski- How deep will your pond be at the deepest point? I wish you were closer so I could come and watch. I love watching the dirt work. Your appreciation of fishing will come with time. When you are older and retired it will become a passion. Now comes the long wait for rain. The days will pass like weeks sometime and you will get to know the National weather service website well. Good luck and keep those photos coming.

PFF,
Funny you should ask WRT the depth. I had another of my many detailed telecon's with my contractor this morning. He set up the rotational laser and shot a few elevations for verification. He said that I have an average 14 ft deep in front of the dam, spreading over an area of about 1 acre.
Now, the fishing thing. I sit here, sweaty and stinkin' from mixing the cement and filling the five gal buckets and drillin' and cuttin' the PVC for the PVC trees. Six of 'em are completely pre-fab'd, six more to go on the bench. These things worked out so good that I gotta try to make a bunch more. My schedule, though, is tight with multiple pond projects. I will need those days with the "long wait for rain" to execute the underwater stuff.
Thanks for the props!

Brettski, there are no words, it is simply Awesome. Gotta love that view from the front porch.

hey brettski, forgive me if i missed this in (this or) another thread, but did you (guys) keyway the dam? just curious (and after the fact) but in pondering your geological situation, i would think w/ what appears to be a relatively homogeneous massive clay layer as your substrate that the need for a deep keyway was somewhat lessened, although I would also think a shallow keyway would still be wise to "re-connect" the disturbed soil used for dam w/ the undisturbed soil. what did you and your guru come up with on that?

Dave, no forgiveness required. It is a great question...I know, because: Core question thread
My last post on that thread, page 4, confirms a core was cut and packed.

Well, this week's update.
Alot of rain this week. When it's fairly sloppy, my guy won't waste time. We still got pretty good production, tho, all things considered.
The dam is done. The adjacent draw is filled in and the roadway traversing it is built up with a culvert. The beach area berms are in (thanks Ewest, Ryan, Bob Lusk, and others). Today, the boss and I suffered 93 degrees x 100% humidity unrolling the 15' x 300' geotextile fabric, cutting it to length, and preparing it's placement for the sand pour. About 3/4 of the building pad is complete...this is another mega dirt-haul in itself.
A pano from the edge of the completed section of the building pad. You can see the outstanding job they did building up a roadway at the left side:

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...a better shot looking up the fabricated roadbed as it travels the south perimeter. We are standing at the boat launch (adjacent to the building pad) and looking toward the dam.

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...after following this same roadbed, it will pop into the woods at a wooded point. Just before we slip back into the woods, we look across the basin toward the dam/left, filled-in draw/left-center, and the knoll with beach area/right. 2 of the 7 geotextile strips are laid in and waiting for load #1 of sand:

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...we follow same road thru about 100 ft of woods and pop back out at the dam, where road continues across. We are looking across the dam and into the draw that had to be filled in to get above water level. The dam is mostly straight. The part that turns right is mostly the roadbed that was built up to cross the draw and get to the beach (black geotextile fabric patch visible thru woods/right)


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Hopefully, if the rain holds off, I pick up the 18" pipe for the principal and we install on Monday. Then, the dirt-guys go back to finishing the building pad.

That's gonna be gorgeous, Brettski.

Very impressive!!!

It's real nice to see what profesionals can do and how it turns out. Being an amature dirt mover, this is something I truly appreciate.

Yesterday I was driving by a new Super Walmart being built in Longview, TX and had to stop and admire the work an operator was doing on the parking lot.

Thanks for the updates,
Eddie

Very nice!

I see what appears to be dozer tracts on the face of the dam?


If so, this is a great way to incorporate grass seed into the new fill and at the same time stabilize the slopes.

I hope "mother nature" cooperates and fills this beautiful structure soon.

Ed

Hi Brettski, i forgot to ask.....is that rainwater accumulation or groundwater? reason i ask is that GW was my clue i had seepage via hydraulic pressure and bedrock substrate (as opposed to seepage thru base of dam which is where I thought it was before we cleaned out pond). we had GW accumulation within hours of initial renovation work, so the deepest areas of pond received thick layer of compacted imported and native clay, feathered out in all directions.

with your clay i would be surprised if 1) it is groundwater and 2) that no amount of hyd. head could drive significant seepage through that beautiful blue stuff you have.

in your prop. research, did you determine where GW might be just out of curiosity?

...excellent point, Ed...thank you.
...the local consensus is pretty much the same. Might take a couple of years to fill 'er, but then again....ya never know with a couple of gully washers.
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Dave,
The wells were average 135 ft deep. Off hand, I don't remember the static water level, but it was pretty far down. The water you see is the result of 1.6" total rainfall over a couple of days. I have the drain closed to a trickle. I want to have some water available to give the drain a good flushing before I close 'er up for good.
Yes, you're right...we never hit GW or anything remotely damp. Although it doesn't appear this way (and other than the 2 mega-holes near the building pad), there is not an area that was excavated any deeper than 4 - 5 feet.

Hey Brettski, did they leave the cleat marks from the dozer treads running up and down your dam slopes or cross-wise? Back (before PB) when my pond was dug, my excavator said the cleat marks should run up and down the slope to allow water runoff and limit the size of any erosion before the grass cover grew - kind of spreading the runoff out into lots of little rivulets rather than letting it collect into a few big ones.

Hadn't thought of that until you and Ed brought it up.

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hmmmm...do I detect a conundrum? Both arguments are sound. I guess the final decision lies in what exists. The tracks run perpendicular to the slope. Advantage Eitel.
(funny, tho, when ya think about it...between the two goals of veg. establishment and minimizing run-off, each proposed "cleat direction" scenario tends to hinder one of the goals)

Time for a compromise - run them on a 45 and accomplish neither goal. Probably tick off the dozer operator, too.

He wouldnt be ticked off.....he'd say "yes Mr. Brettski, whatever you want" and just add some hours to invoice.

i ran mine up and down (perp. to slope), both the hydroseeding stuck better w/ that geometry and the erosion factor was minimized.....we had some real gully washers last winter.

My contractor put a smooth metal bar on the bottom of his blade and back dragged it smooth as a baby's behind.

I agree with pondForfun, all my contractors have back dragged the tracks out as the final touch. The last contractor even brought his motorgrader out and really smoothed it up.

Brettski, what a great thread! Your place is turning out beautiful. I will be modeling my future pond in my dreams after yours. Now to get some grass established to protect this wonderful dirt work. Unfortunately the ideal time to seed is around the second week of September. I used a rock hound/landscape rake attached to a skid loader to prepare seed beds for grass. It picked up rocks off of the surface and left a nice smooth finish. I recently came across a similar attachment called a "soil conditioner" in a rental catalog claiming that it is ideal for preparing seed beds. I've never used one but it looks interesting. This final step may be good to get taken care of while you dirt guy still has equipment there. I seeded and mulched (straw) myself and watered for a couple of weeks where possible. The areas I could water turned out great, the areas I couldn't didn't and are going to require some minor renovations. I would hire a hydoseeder to do an area as large as yours especially since watering will be rainfall only.

Keep the posts and pics coming