Offered another unusual project

[Hay Dude]

Have a long time customer. It's a large acreage HOA with several fields to be hayed and large grass areas to be mowed.
They also have 3 small ponds.
1 pond is spring fed. The spring has unexpectedly dried up. I dont know a lot about the life cycle of springs, so I don't know if they can also come back to life, but it's been on the decline for about a year.
The pond is down to 10-20% (best guess). Water is evaporating, so diminishing with each passing day. There is no other natural water source to replace it nearby. The property owners would like to keep the pond, but are not of unlimited wealth.

Here is the only 2 ways I can think of to replenish the pond:
1. Drill a well. But how much the well gives in GPH is anyone's guess. Very rough estimated cost is about $10,000.

2. The current building the owners live in is uphill from the pond, about 300-500' away in a PUD building of 6 condominium units. Only a small part of the building currently has gutters and downspouts. I was contemplating installing hundreds of feet of 5" gutter, with 3x4 down spouts on the building and running all the down spouts into a continuous rain water retention system. Rather than running the underground pipe into a typical large stone pit, instead run the water directly into the pond.
Realize there's no guarantee it'll rain enough to keep the pond full, but other than that, that's the only reasonable sources of water I can come up with. The roofs areas are pretty large. I suppose there's a roof water runoff calculator that can help calculate.
Another noteworthy point is the other ponds, about 1/4 mile away each, are also spring fed, but not low on water. So that tells me it's probably not a drought issue?

This is all in the "talking/ideas" phase. I have installed several rainwater retention systems, so this is nothing new for me from an installation perspective.
I just don't know if it's enough water?
Pond is triangular about 150' on each leg and averages about 4-5' deep.

Don't want to install something that won't work or lessen my reputation with customer. Another thing definitely worth mentioning is the customer also has some desire to have gutters and downspouts installed to get roof runoff away from the building, so there could be a 2-fer type of benefit in helping to keep water from damaging building foundations

 

[2manyrocks]

Has there been some underground mining nearby that affected the spring?

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Could you offer to install the gutters, and route the runoff into the pond, with full disclosure to the owners that it may not refill the pond? They want gutters anyway.

If it doesn't refill the pond, they you can discuss adding a well later.

I would suggest you do a little more research on the gutter option. Calculate the area of the roof, and your average yearly rainfall, and the area of the pond to get an estimate of how much water you could expect to get into the pond from the gutters.

 

[2manyrocks]

I knew someone who dug a pond that never held water because it was unknowingly dug over a sink hole that opened up a few years later. Point being it can be difficult to assess what is going on underneath.

Also see some trees growing in the pond basin…

 

[Hay Dude]

Has there been some underground mining nearby that affected the spring?

No, but good thinking

 

[Hay Dude]

I knew someone who dug a pond that never held water because it was unknowingly dug over a sink hole that opened up a few years later. Point being it can be difficult to assess what is going on underneath.

I did a walk around assessment and don't see any damp areas at the "breast" of the pond. No signs of leakage, but definitely a dried-up supply.
Additionally, the pond has been there for about 50 years (mid 70's man made pond)

 

[2manyrocks]

Tempted to suggest looking at historic google map images to see if there was development nearby that changed the path of the spring.

Not my field of expertise, but if a spring source stops flowing into a pond, can it then act as a drain?

 

[Hay Dude]

Tempted to suggest looking at historic google map images to see if there was development nearby that changed the path of the spring.

No nothing. No mining, developing, ponds, etc.

 

[scootr]

Get an old Water Witch out there to see if the supply is still around but just rerouted, not going in the pond... that can be fun.
I hired one such old Indian guy when I needed a new well to show me where the water was, and he was right.

 

[2manyrocks]

I think you can download the historic rainfall data for free to see if rainfall drought could be an issue. Search | Climate Data Online (CDO) | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

The pond location looks like it is at the bottom of a natural basin that has way more water collection potential than the building rooftop.

 

[stucknutz]

I fought this with a pond of my own.

The only real solution to keeping a pond full IMO is fill it in so you do not have to worry about it or put in a well. I put a well in for my pond last fall and I'm glad I did.

I looked at re routing all my gutters.
Looked at filling in my road ditch and divert all the water to my pond.
I emptied the pond several times and used betonite to "seal" it
I emptied it another time and brought clay in to make sure the basin had good clay and packed properly.

All of the above guess what? Pond still was not full.

With the well. It's full.

Hope this helps.

 

[dodge man]

In a perfect world you have a runoff area to a pond of at least 10 to 1. In other words if you have a 1 acre pond you have 10 acres of runoff. In your picture at least some ground runs into the pond but I can’t tell how much. The good part of diverting water runoff from the buildings is about 95% of that will be runoff. Some ground will only runoff 15%.

 

[MMC]

I don't know your area in terms of hydrology, but somebody does. I have re-established productive springs, but it does require a bit of study (and sometimes luck). Since other springs nearby are still flowing, I would believe your spring has found a lower pressure route underground (away from the pond). But a constant flowing spring source can produce really impressive amounts of water (a good thing for cattle). This assumes a spring really has been flowing into that pond, naturally.

Cleaning out and re-impounding old springs is not unusual. The USDA and the old Soil Conservation Services (SCS) associated with the University of Kentucky's "Extension Offices" have certainly helped me in the past. I would think you might have such support in your area as well. They will have the technical build specs on gravel/barrier impoundment/piping, etc. Down here, they keep a list of folks who can do this sort of work as well, but with your skill set, I'm pretty sure you could tackle it.

But first you've got to find the spring path again. The local SCS Office helped with getting support from their "water guys." Turned out a retired UK Hydrologist came and walked the area with me and supplied Hydrology maps of the area and gave some really good suggestions.

And then you dig... My old Case 580C didn't find it, but a bigger Case did find a full flow point after several hours chasing it. The spring was still running, just needed to be persuaded to go where we wanted it to go. Still doing fine after a decade of use with a 3" pipe running water over the top of a concrete cattle tank.

Of course, there's never a guarantee on these things and I had the advantage of knowing that spring had been flowing here since Daniel Boone's time. There was no cost for the assistance from the Ag folks - don't know if your operation in hay would apply here. I still would bet they would help you with technical materials and maps, though. I know ours would...good people.

Best of luck.

 

[redman135]

Has the spring silted up?
Would a long reach type digger clean the pond out and unblock the spring?

Re draining roof water, where does existing roof water go?
How much piping is there currently, and is it practical to plug into existing pipe and drain to pond instead? (minimise new pipe)

 

[Hay Dude]

Has the spring silted up?
Would a long reach type digger clean the pond out and unblock the spring?

The spring that feeds the pond is about 300’ away from the pond. From where the spring originates, it runs downhill into the pond, so the spring is not in the confines of the pond, it is detached from the pond. Water used to flow pretty freely to the pond. now its down to barely a trickle.

Re draining roof water, where does existing roof water go?

Its a 1970’s building. Generally, it has extended cantilevered over-hangs and has no gutters. A few small areas do have gutters, but generally, the water just drips off the roof’s edge and down onto the lawns. This is not good for the foundation. The owners recognize this. They realize that collecting the water would get rid of the saturation next to foundations and possibly add water to the pond.

How much piping is there currently, and is it practical to plug into existing pipe and drain to pond instead? (minimise new pipe)

There is no piping. I would be starting with nothing. First order of business (assuming there’s an agreement between customers and I) would be to install gutters & downspouts.

 

[2manyrocks]

Looks like a springhouse between the buildings at the top of the hill and the pond below. I think the first task would be to see if sediment is blocking the spring outlet.

Could be a snake or two in there, too.

 

[Rustyiron]

I'd "poke around" with your new excavator at the spring and inspect the 300' waterway to the pond.
A fallen stick or accumulated weeds or leaves will easily divert slow moving water.

 

[Hay Dude]

Looks like a springhouse between the buildings at the top of the hill and the pond below. I think the first task would be to see if sediment is blocking the spring outlet.

Thats a well house with a pump and water softeners for the building’s residents. The spring for the pond is a good distance from there.

Could be a snake or two in there, too.

definitely.

 

[MMC]

Seems like there's no downside to the gutter and underground drain system. I'm a little amazed that water and foundation problems haven't cropped up in all this time with these buildings having no overhead gutters. But I will admit brick/stone ground gutters with decent fall worked on a lot of old houses...

One reason they may not have had issues is that the builder may have put in a robust French drain system around the foundation. That may also be something you need to identify before digging to install your underground drain/runoff system for your gutter plan to keep from hitting it when you trench.

But assuming a price point for the owners and yourself is comfortable, those buildings really need gutters. It really wouldn't take too much trenching to get underground corrugated pipe to that pond either. Bottom line...couldn't hurt.

As for the spring, since you can identify the original source on open ground, a couple of hours with a backhoe or excavator should tell you if the flow is worth re-establishing to the pond. If that doesn't work, fill it in, spread some grass seed and straw and walk away...if you find a good flow, discuss with owners as to costs to impound and pipe to pond and go from there.

Here's a quick spring development overview from the USDA NRCS folks: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/Spring_Development_574_Overview_9_2020.pdf

Best of luck.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Digging the pond deeper to hit more ground water should/could be a consideration as well, the only problem is you would need to haul the material away from the pond bank if not the water level will always look low.

One option could be to simply digging it deeper as mentioned above, another option could be to dig a deep hole in the middle of the pond stand a culvert vertical in the hole backfill it some ways and seal the bottom of the pond and install a pump in the culver pumping water out to the pond as needed... kind of like golf course pond or remote cattle watering hole.

These two option could be cheaper than a well.