Good Afternoon!

Really glad I found this forum. Lots of information on here!

I'm looking at digging a .25ac pond in my field with a depth of 12-15ft in some spots. Field is cleared and no rock/gravel here so "should" be an easy dig.

All dug material will be used to create a privacy berm around the front of the pond which faces the road.

I'm going to do some test digs soon but my contractor thinks we'll hit mostly clay or silty clay in this area. Really hope we hit some water to fill and provide clean water into it.

Contractor figures around 2 days with a 336 excavator running and a dozer to move the dirt onto the berm.

The location is a natural dip in the field where water accumulates in the spring melt or heavy rain and naturally flows away from the site. Other than that it's dry all year. I'm hoping we can just place riprap at the low end that the water will spill over as needed in melt or heavy rain. Not sure we'll hit a spring. If we do we may need to do something more elaborate to control the water level and overflow.

I had a couple questions:

1. Would I need a dam in this instance if we're just digging out the existing dip in the field? I'm hoping water will just go in/out as it does now and the pond will be in the middle of that flow.

2. For the privacy berm, would 15ft be enough space from the pond edge and where the incline of the berm begins? I'm hoping that will allow for enough space to walk/drive around the pond but also be enough distance to not have a bunch of silt get washed back into the pond until we get some vegetation on it.

3. Does 2 days sound reasonable to build a .25 pond that deep with an excavator and dozer running?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thank you