Pond re-do Part 2

[Barton]

Here is Part 1

After a long delay, Stan, the pond man, called Wed. afternoon and asked to meet me onsite Thur. to discuss the plan to make sure we where on the same page. I took a few pictures of the dry pond.

The first picture shows the east bank and the northern end of the pond. It also shows the island but it's hard to see. The east bank will not change. Fill will be added to the right of the bank since that area is lower than the bank and stays wet if and when we have rain.

We're in an extreme drought now. The experts say we're having the driest May on record. I was curious as to why there was a large bare area here. I took a shovel and tried to dig a hole and saw that there was about a half inch of sediment and then pure hard clay.

The second picture shows the dam. It will be de-constructed. The new dam will have a larger footprint and constructed properly, i. e. cored, wider base and top, etc.

The third picture was taken from the dam looking northeast. It also shows the island. Some of the old longleaf pine stumps still have the notches in them from when the turpentine was harvested. The north end was very shallow, swampy, etc. Stan couldn't give us a firm quote until he "uncovered" the north end to see what had to be done.

 

[Knight9]

Hi Bart,

I had missed Part 1 so I went back and read that first. Looked like a beautiful pond, so I'm sure any improvements will make it that much better! I'm looking forward to following the "re"construction.

Although you're in a drought now, are you concerned about getting it filled back up again over time?
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[Barton]

Although you're in a drought now, are you concerned about getting it filled back up again over time?
​

Hi Kevin,

No, I'm not really concerned. There, apparently, was enough acreage that drained to the old pond to bring it up to full level. Also, I saw water running thru the spillway several times in the past. When Stan broke the dam last Sep. he dug 2 test holes below the dam. The holes immediately began to fill with water so there was significant leakage thru/under the dam. Michele and Tony don't plan to move on site for another 5 years. It will be interesting to see how long it will take to fill.

So Friday morning I was at home doing my thing when Stan called. He asked me to come right over since he had the north end and part of the west side cleared. He also had the water line staked on the east, north, and part of the west sides. DW volunteered to go to keep me company.

I'll attached a few pictures to show the progress.

The first is of the old spillway. He said he was going to have to rebuild it. The top of the pink flags will be the high water mark.

The next 2 will show the east side and then a couple of the north, then west. I'll include a couple of action shots and then the site of the former island.

Initially we had told Stan to take out all of the volunteer pecan trees. But he had uncovered 3 pretty ones and since they would not be in the way, he suggested we leave them. I agreed.

The last picture is of DW reading her Kindle.

 

[MarkV]

Bart, glad you are updating the project. I enjoyed the big fish catch from your first post. One question I had was about pond weeds. If that was a problem in the original pond you may want to take advantage of the work now to help with that in the future. You mentioned the east bank remaining as is and it has a gradual slope. Pond managers often recommend a steeper slope to gain depth closer to shore and cut the sunlight that promotes pond weeds. Of course if that hasn't been a problem it doesn't matter.

If you haven't in the past take a look at Pond Boss Magazine: Welcome They have a forum with a great deal of information on building and renovating ponds.

MarkV

 

[Barton]

I got ahead of myself in telling the story. On Thur. I took a couple of pictures of an area that has been troublesome for our neighbour, Greg. Property to the west of him drains to his small pond and his pond overflows and drains thru a culvert under the county road to our side.
I have come to believe the county road crew is somewhat road maintence challenged. Every now and they come thru with a grader and, either, fill in the ditches or leave a ridge on both sides of the dirt road. I have never seen a crown. Once in a great while they will come back and dig out the ditch and the process starts over again. In the past they have caught the end of the culvert and ripped of the end when they cleaned out the ditch. Bit by bit, and now the culvert is 3 - 4 feet shorter than it should be. When ever the grader comes thru and is in the "filling-in-the-ditch" mode, the end of the culvert gets covered up, thus the water doesn't drain from Greg's property.

The power company has recently whacked back the overgrowth from their easement and the road crew has recently cleaned out the ditch. A fairly deep ditch, running into the woods on the north end of the pond, was revealed. Also, there are many yards of sand stacked, by the road crew, on the easement and also on into the property.

Stan is going to build up this area, install a 20' x 24" culvert, and a sand trap between the road and culvert. The culvert will allow east field to west field access on the north side of the property.

The first 2 pictures show the culvert and ditch area. While I was there on Fri. the county grader made a couple of passes.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Great Project! My pond probably has waist deep silt in it in areas. It is rather long and narrow but about 2 acres. I wish I had the money to get an old dragline to deepen it. I was thinking with a helper, using a 4wd tractor and big box blade to scrape the spoils over to a low area, I could get it done without draining. I know it would get messy, I'd probably just have to put the spoils in a continous "ridge" behind me as I work forward. After drying time, maybe then I could spread it out. Has anyone spread silt over their fields? I'm wondering if it is very detrimental assuming it is anerobic....Talk about pond scum...:laughing:

 

[EddieWalker]

Great project and perfect timing. Dig while the digging is good and dig as much as you can get out before it gets wet again!!!!!

Eddie

 

[Barton]

Mark,

Yes, the old pond had a weed problem in the northern third, around the island, and the first few feet along the bank. Stan said the there will be a minimum 3' depth in the new pond. Most of the pond will be much deeper with a few deep holes.

The pond boss site has been mention on this forum many times and I have been there a couple times. But there's several things going on with this project:

I'm not the owner of the property, just volunteering to help my daughter and SIL. What little I know about ponds is what I have read on this forum (Eddie's thread for instance ).

Dau. and SIL are absentee owners and both have very demanding jobs.

Stan's main business is building ponds including "government ponds" (his words, i.e. cost sharing with property owners). By the way, this is not a government pond. He is well known for his work and was highly recommended.

There is no written contract for this project. Things still get done with a handshake in this neck of the woods. This can be dangerous and we almost had a "slip up". Probably would offend someone if we insisted on a written contract. No money has changed hands yet.

I'm a certified, card-carrying senior citizen and am just doing the best I can. :confused2: My goal, in helping with this project, is to help ensure that nothing major falls thru the cracks and make recommendations to my Dau., who makes the decisions and pays the bills, that will make it a good pond.

I appreciate yours and everyone else's comments and help. Thanks!

Kyle,

That's funny. I was thinking the same thing about the silt. I thought I would bring home a few buckets of it and see how things would grow in it. That's why I had the shovel, mentioned earlier, with me. One concern was how much Ag chemicals were in the silt. I think I'll just buy some top soil when I need it.

Eddie,

Yes, Stan waited a good while to make sure it had dried up and he is going to complete the north end first. That's the part that will get the most run off first and stay the wettest if it ever rains again. Now he says there might be a delay in coring the dam since the clay is too dry and won't pack down. It figures.

Thanks for everyones' interest.

 

[Barton]

I have another update with pictures.

Last Friday, when I was discussing the situation with Stan, he mentioned he was going to change the spillway a bit. The spillway was designed to handle normal and emergency overflow. It was quite elaborate and probably was quite scenic at one time as it was lined with brick, rock, and concrete block. It has a small dam made of block, re-enforced with rebar and concrete.

But the spillway was a source of irritation since going thru it was the main route to the dam. It stayed wet a good bit of the time which also made it difficult to mow. The area between the little dam in the spillway and the pond could not be mowed at all.

Part of the spillway, on the outside of a curve, was line with large, dry-stacked concrete block. I thought it would be a great waste for these blocks to be buried in a hole so decided to salvage them.

Brother Warren (who's no spring chicken, either) volunteered to help and I hired his stepson's wife's twin sister's husband, Scott, to help. Scott is a fellow Marine vet who served 4 years active duty and 5 years active reserve. He was called up while in the reserve to "visit" Kuwait and Iraq. He felt like close kin to me.

Shortly after we started, neighbor, Greg, showed up with his Ford with forks. Told us to go ahead and use it and try to pop out the blocks with the forks. He said he might come back to check out the progress. I asked Warren to do the tractoring since he has more experience and, also, he's an Ag engineer (and acts like it, too :laughing. After Greg showed him the quirks (no brakes, etc.), he left to go do his thing and never came back. Probably a good thing too 'cause, by the time we were done, we each would have given him a hug and a kiss.

Anyway, here's a couple of pictures of us gettin' it. It took us 4 hours and we salvage 88 block. Also, a few pictures of Stan's progress. The last picture shows the culvert under the road, that I mentioned in an earlier post, area.

I'm going to central fLa. for a few days so won't be able to be "onsite" until next Monday.

 

[Barton]

The pond project was completed in June but I'm just now making the time to show the rest of the story.

My brother and I went over there on the 6th to check on the progress. Stan had pretty much completed the final grade on the east, north, and most of the west bank, and was now roughing in the dam.

The first picture is of the east side and shows where Stan filled in the low area with clay. He will cover up the clay with top soil. The 2nd shows part of the north and west.

3rd and 4th shows the back and front sides of the roughed in dam.

The next 3 are some action shots of Stan. That would give me the willies.

A picture of my brother standing next to an old longleaf pine stump and lastly, a picture of the cleaned out spillway.