Get rid of or rerout a spring?

Chris2 · Jul 29, 2013

Ok guys/gals I've searched the internet over and am not finding any helpful info on how to dry up a natural spring. I have two small spring fed creeks on my land and the only place I can pass between them with my tractor stays wet all year. I can only cross it a few times before I make an impassable mud hole (Between the creeks not the creek itself). I'm thinking of putting in a french drain unless someone has a better idea. Can a spring be dried up or is routing the water to a more suitable place the better option?
Just some more info: I dug up a stump not far from where this problem is and the water table was only about 10"-14" under the surface.
That brings up another question. The place I dug the stump is a small valley before the first creek from there it goes slightly uphill to the creek. If I put a few loads of dirt in the valley would it just turn into more soft ground or would it firmly increase the distance from the water table to stay hard ground?
Hope I wrote this well enough that you can make sense of it.
Thanks for the help.

stuckmotor · Jul 29, 2013

There's a dirt road near here with a shallow stream going across it. There's no culvert, only a solid layer of rocks in the stream. If memory serves, the rocks are about the size of a cantalope. I've never gotten stuck in that stream, even with a couple of inhes inches of water over the rocks. Something like that might let you cross your spring. Unfortunately, I don't know how deep those rocks go or whether more ever have to be added.

Baby Grand · Jul 29, 2013

It's doubtful that you can dry up a spring. I'd try rerouting the outflow. If you can dig down to make a channel that's lower than the present level of the water, that will help keep your road bed dry. French drain or open channel, depending on if you want to treat the spring as a problem or as a resource.

Egon · Jul 29, 2013

Time for some geotextile fabric and crushed gravel fo a roadway?

SPIKER · Jul 29, 2013

It has been my experience the best way to stop a marginal spring is to try and develop it into a free flowing spring. Best way to stop a marginal spring is to try and clog it up which makes it run 10 times as much... ;/

Out of 3 different attempts to develop one of my springs it just kept popping up somewhere else that was worse than the place it was previous. Then when I tried to clog it up as it was where I DID NOT want it it ran much more... I ended up having to dig down and run 4" tile in a trench all way to the creek which was back filled with 90% course gravel and a layer of soil on top...

Mark

Chris2 · Jul 29, 2013

Thanks. Sometime next week I'll dig a trench in it leading to the creek and just see what happens. If that works ok I'll put in a french drain.

Shmudda · Jul 30, 2013

You can never stop water, you can only divert, pipe, or channel it in a useful direction.

Craig

rd_macgregor · Aug 1, 2013

I had several runs of 4" drain tile put into a couple of my pastures in hopes of draining off a bunch of springs. Its been a mixed bag of results. Some still bubble to the surface, some have popped up elsewhere and some are totally dry now (except at the lower end of the tile, of course).
If you have livestock in the fields, one innovation that has worked pretty well for me on my really steep land was to put a Y in the tile and tap it halfway up the field to run water through a 3/4" pipe into a water tank at the lower edge of the field; the overflow from the tank runs back down into the tile. This means the horses have fresh, running water in the field tanks and the tanks don't freeze until pretty late in the fall (when I turn a bypass valve and drain and cover the tanks for the winter).
BOB

stuckmotor · Aug 10, 2013

stuckmotor said:
There's a dirt road near here with a shallow stream going across it. There's no culvert, only a solid layer of rocks in the stream. If memory serves, the rocks are about the size of a cantalope. I've never gotten stuck in that stream, even with a couple of inhes inches of water over the rocks. Something like that might let you cross your spring. Unfortunately, I don't know how deep those rocks go or whether more ever have to be added.

I drove through the stream the other day without a hint of getting stuck. It's now lined with gravel. It looked like crusher run to me.