Mudfarmer
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2009
- Messages
- 367
- Location
- Western Washington
- Tractor
- JD 3005, Kubota B2710, Kubota B2650 (sold the ford 1700 and kubota B7100)
Need advice: I recently bought 40 acres of timberland outside of Elma in Western Washington. Most of it has recently been logged and replanted, but there is one area with about twenty year old trees covering about four acres of realatively falt ground at the bottom of a draw. There is a small creek running through that area. By small I mean about a foot across and 6 inches deep. I assumed it was rain run off and would dry up in the late summer but am now not so sure of that. It may actually be a year round spring. In any event there is a pond covering about a half acre in the midst of the four acres with obvious beaver activity (read mess) at the down flow end of the pond. So my wife and I assumed it was a beaver pond. We set out last week to break the dam to decrease the mosquitoes in the area. About a foot below mud and beaver sticks we ran into a gravel berm. My first thoughts were that those were some pretty industrious beavers. I got tired of digging at the gravel by hand after about half an hour and left the wife digging away to check out a smaller pond below the main one. It had an obvious beaver dam that I was able to dig out with a shovel. The little pond drained over the next half hour revealing a 12 inch concrete pipe at the base of the gravel berm (read dam) that was flowing about the same amount of water that the creek was delivering to the top of the pond. Best I can figure is that this was a pond built 50 + years ago to provide water for forest fire control. As far as I can find out no one has ever lived on the property. Next thinkgwas to poke a 20 foot pole up the pipe - did hit some obstruction at the full length of the pole which would have been well on the pond side of the gravel dam. I presume the pond was constructed with this pipe as a drain and that the inlet on the upside is mostly obstructed by debris, silt, beaver junk or a cap. Hence my question - any great ideas about how to clean this pipe out and make the pond drainable and functional again. I would like to drain it and clean out the silt. Any experience with how such a pond might have been designed and how to (cheaply) clear the pipe would be appreciated. I will remember to take my camera on my next project day.
Mf
Mf