Originally posted by Bruce Condello:
Well, as you may know, your ability to have a 10-12 acre pond is dependant on the following factors.
1. Economics factors, primarily dam building, that are influenced by the width of the area to be dammed.
2. Annual rainful (How much do you get?)
3. Slopes in watershed, which dictates the rapidity of filling in a rain event, i.e. if you have flatter topography, the water has more time to seep into the ground.
4. Types of soils throughout the entire watershed, which will control how quickly the ground absorbs the rainfall.
5. Soil type in the pond basin, which affects seepage.
Your local NRCS will be able to do some relatively simple computations that will tell you what is an appropriate sized pond for that particular location.
Obviously you want adequate amounts of water--but you can also get too much, neccesitating large costs in overflow construction.
I'd already start collecting soils from eroded areas in the watershed to see if they settle out in a "jar test".
1 Economics will def be a large factor. The area to be dammed will not be to long due to the narrow bottom between slopes. The pond will have to be a long narrow pond.
2 annual rainfall is roughly 50"
3 slopes in the watershed are very steep.
The soil type is pretty much the same thru out the water shed it does of a lot of clay, but the basin is very rocky.
