Building a smlll 100' pond in a rainy area

[Ocean2026]

These are timberlands in SW Washington 55"of rain annually 10" each Dec Jan Feb--sandy loam soil

I would like a pond that would attract wildlife (not to shoot them) ducks deer etc. I would love it if all that rain could be diverted -used to refresh the pond.. The pond doesn't have to be any exact size or shape

How might this be achieved?

 

[jeff9366]

I would discuss your parameters with your county ag agent.

In terms of equipment, this is work for an excavator, possibly with an extended boom.

Wheeled vehicles bog easily. Tracked vehicles have much greater float over soft dirt.


VIDEO: excavator pond - YouTube

 

[MossRoad]

These are timberlands in SW Washington 55"of rain annually 10" each Dec Jan Feb--sandy loam soil

I would like a pond that would attract wildlife (not to shoot them) ducks deer etc. I would love it if all that rain could be diverted -used to refresh the pond.. The pond doesn't have to be any exact size or shape

How might this be achieved?

Sandy loam drains easily. One of the first questions would be will your soil hold water?

 

[Gary Fowler]

Sandy loam drains easily. One of the first questions would be will your soil hold water?

This is the most important issue. You may have to line the pond with clay or a rubber membrane if the soil is too porous. This could be a major expense if needed. As for equipment to dig it, depending on the amount of moisture encountered, it could be dug with a tractor with FEL and box blade if the ground is dry. A 100 foot square pond is pretty large to be dug with a tractor though. If your soil can handle a pond, then I think you would be money ahead to contract with a pond builder that has a dozer and large excavator to dig a pond that size. It is not going to be cheap though.

 

[CobyRupert]

If it's sandy soil, can you dig pond with just a drain trench that passes water through while you dig the rest, without getting stuck? Then you have to add a clay base to hold water when done?

Or do you need to dig a small basin on upstream end where the water can be put in a pipe or hoses to bypass the area you're digging pond in?

Or do you have an excavator with enough reach that getting stuck isn't a problem?

 

[repete]

Where are you located in SW Washington? Putting in a pond here is not difficult because of springs and clay......

I am west of Chehalis.

 

[EddieWalker]

Digging is easy, the real work and where you spend you money is in what you do with the soil. If you can push it to the side, then that would be the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to go. The farther you haul it, the more it will cost you.

Since this is to attract wildlife and not for fishing, a shallow pond is much more attractive to birds then a deep one. Think of a beaver pond and you will see what Mother Nature has come up with what wildlife likes the best.

Will you be doing this yourself? Buying something to do this and then sell it after you are done? Or will you be hiring somebody to do it? Considering how small of a pond that you want, and that most of it should be 2 to 3 feet deep so the ducks and geese can feed off of the plants growing in it, a dozer seems like the ideal tool to do this if you can push the dirt to the side and either build it up into an attractive hill, or spread it out over a larger area of land so it blends in.

I believe Ducks Unlimited has some info on this, but I'll try to remember what I read. Seasonal ponds attract ducks the best because of the vegetation that grows up when the water is gone. Then when the water comes back, it provides an ideal food source and cover for waterfowl. So the question is to what degree this will be for wildlife and how important is it to look pretty?

The same is true for a fishing pond as far as appearances go. Fish like structure and variations in depth and contours in the bottom of the pond. The uglier you make it, the better it will be for the fish.

Will your soil hold water? How deep is the top soil and what is under it? Will you be willing to pay for and install a liner?

 

[forgeblast]

Ducks unlimited sometimes have funds to help with projects like this. Might want to talk to your local ag department. They can help with regulations etc, and they would know who else to talk to.

 

[Diggin It]

Jeffy might have hit on something here. Wetlands and water retention/diversion can fall under all sorts of state and federal regulations. Would probably be worth checking into those matters before doing anything further.

If that turns out not to be an issue for your area, there might even be state or federal grants available to help in addition to any private foundation funding.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm from California and in my opinion, it's one of the worse states to do anything on your own land. A friend had some land and wanted to put in a pond, but after fighting with agency after agency just to add to his driveway so firetrucks could get to his cabin, he quit going through the permit process and fought them in court. He enjoyed the fight and I think that was a driving factor in a lot of what he did. He also knew everyone in government already from his career as a city planner for Oakland, CA. He ran for office a few times too, so that helped.

Anyway, he figured out that if you try to do something new, or something that required a permit, they would use every resource available to stop him from doing it. But if he just did it and when they came after him, he would tell them that it had always been there, but in need of repair, that they couldn't do anything to him. His pond had always been there, but over the last 50 years, the trees had overgrown the area where the dam had failed and he was just repairing the damage.

On his driveway, he got the fire chief out there and he overruled the Park and Forestry people.

If you are willing to play the game, you can win at it.