Rx for ponds silting in.

[Bird]

Of course there are always lots of options. There's a guy in this area who has a very old, but pretty big dragline and he cleans out tanks, with the water in them. Or as my brother did last year when his was pretty low anyway, ran a garden hose over the dam and down into the gulley behind the dam, siphoned most of the water out (took about 3 days), then pumped out the rest with my little Homelite pump, let it dry several days, then a bulldozer cleaned it out, enlarged it, etc.

Bird

 

[scruffy]

Hey RAT! I am sure it was a typo, but you really must be careful of that finger usage! I do believe that Gold Rush you are talking about was in 1849! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[patrickg]

Yet another good reason to try my brainstorm. Your story reminds me of the first job I ever bid, removing an unwanted tree from the backyard for my dad. I looked it over and quoted a price. He said ok go for it. By the time I had the bell hole dug and the tap root cut I was into it 3-5 times as much work as I had thought. I'm sure he did this to teach me a valuable lesson, not take advantage because if he had simply said, "son, take out that tree and the stump as soon as is practical", obedient 13 yr old I was I would have done it without much thought of pay.

Patrick

 

[patrickg]

It helps to find the idea came to someone else as well. Maybe it isn't too crazy. I have 10 ponds and some poor land that errodes easily. I will be working on the problem for a while. The ditch/filter idea integrated into a restoration project seems attractive but never heard of anything like that and was hoping that if it had some real problems "ouse guys" would set me straight.

Patrick

 

[patrickg]

Thanks for all the thoughts and info guys. I've seen suction dredges making harbors navigable as well as the old gold days stuff in California A N D J. Costeau TV specials. I think Keene industries (supplied my hooka hose) is one of the outfits that used to make floating dredges with hooka. An electronics tech I employed only worked when he needed a gurb stake then off to the No Cal gold field to dredge with his Keene equip. The 2 inch might be a bit small but I have it and it will serve to prototype. My pump is a 5.5 HP trash pump. If I use a strainer I should be able to reduce the opportunity for a blockage. Smell!!! Oh wow man! I forgot about that. Note my "Dumbest thing..." post and figure where I'll put it if it stinks too much.

Some of the ponds are pretty small. I could cast all the way across. Some are irregularly shaped and over 100yds long with a foot bridge to get to the other side easier. One that I pulled 14 1/2 feet of willow root out of its 6 in dia 120 ft long drain pipe has a dam with a back side right at 100 ft top to bottom along the slope, not vertical. The dam is about 250-300 ft long. Others are a tad smaller, about the same or a lot smaller. All are in good locations and most of the good locations are taken. Motivation for repair is that I absolutely can't muster the resources to replace one of the larger ones so I better take care of what I have. Most were dug down for a source of dirt to make the dam. All have dams but one which although it has fish, frogs, turtles, and snakes is pretty small. The story was that the previous owner (now it will make sense) whose business was dozers and earth movers, road and golf course construction, was digging up some dirt for the back side of the dam of the immediate up slope pond and "knocked the top off a spring". Anyway its small but never goes dry. There was a record drought here a few years ago and none of the ponds went dry or had a fish die off. Hope the luck holds. Maybe it will if I desilt 'em for more depth and volume. I do have my eye on a couple spots where a moderate quantity of dirt would impound a significant volume of water. One ravine with a sandstone bottom would make a 12-15 ft deep channel connecting to the proposed "new" pond.

One scary thing I did not mention is the trees growing in some of the dams. I'm told that is very bad as if it dies then its roots become pond drains.

Thanks again for the input.

Patrick

 

[GlueGuy]

Ahem,

Around here, we call it North California and South California. And hey! I live in the SF Bay Area! Of course we draw a distinction between us up here in the mountains and the flatlanders down in the valley.

The valley is very different from what it was 30 years ago when I moved here. I always attributed the change from all the foreigners (like folks from new yawk) invading.

The GlueGuy

 

[Anonymous Poster]

If your pond is receiving constant flows from streams dewatering will be a little more complicated. If it is not, I would dewater the pond by pumping the CLEAN water downtream. When the pond is as dry as possible then you can begin sediment removal. There are many methods you can use to remove the sediment, but in all cases the sediment should be placed in a confined dewatering area. When all of the sediment has been dewatered (dried), you can spread it and stabilize it with grass. The goal with all ponds is to prevent the sediments from entering the pond. I can offer you several methods to achieve that goal.
I word to the wise ....before you undertake this process make sure you contact your local County/State offices to check on any regulations or permit requirements.

I am employed by Gov. in VA. as an Environmental Specialist.

Pat Menichino

 

[DarinRay]

Pat,

I know that I would be interested in some methods of keeping sediments out of our ponds. They are spring fed and are shallow,, deepest point is probably 6' and from the sides it's a very shallow drop to the middle. I've basically turned these into fish ponds (don't swim in them) but woudl like to make it better looking though. Like what's been said I don't want to make it a whole lot deeper just because I don't want to hit a gravel vane or something and have water leak out. Thanks in advance

Darin

 

[jinman]

...and speaking of removing stumps. I have a postoak tree in a wide valley (Texas-size gulley) that died last year in the drought. It's about 18" in diameter and I thought I would just dig down and cut its roots and push it over like I have done with so many. Well...it turns out that the area has silted in so much that after digging down 3-1/2' all around the trunk, I haven't discovered the 1st root. No wonder the tree died. The roots might be another two or three feet down...Oh fudge! I decided to just cut it off about two feet below ground level with my chainsaw (after cleaning off all the dirt). I'll fill the hole back in and pretend it never was there.

Patrick, what kind of soil do you have on your 160 ac? Is it red dirt? North of OK City it is redder than a firetruck and I know that there is quite a bit of red soil around Norman too, but it changes as you go south toward the Arbuckles where it's not nearly as red. I have a lot of white sand that erodes if you spit on it. I had a dry pond last year and was going to get a dozer to clean it out. The operator, who is local, told me that in some of these erosion spots the silt can be almost 10' deep. He said he had a friend who drove his dozer right out into a dry pond and watched it sink into the drysilt. The stuff is so soft and fluffy that I drove around the edge of my dry pond and had ruts almost 1' deep. Talk about pucker factor.... Anyway, the week I had this guy scheduled to clean out my pond, it started to rain and now I have an almost full pond. I may have to wait another 10 years for the dry cycle to come around and dry up the pond. If I want it clean, I'll probably have to drain it./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

JimI

 

[patrickg]

JimI, Your story reminded me of the cowboy who was ridin' along and came across a guy waist deep in the mud at a crossing with a real sad face. First cowboy says, "I'll get a rope to you and have you out and everything will be just fine in two shakes." Guy in mud says, "I don't think so." First cowboy says, "No problem, I'll get you to my place just over the ridge and you'll clean up just fine." Guy says, "Sure I will, and my saddle too but I'm sittin' on my best horse."

Red dirt?? Clay?? In Oklalhoma?? You're kidding, right? But seriously, have you ever been to the town of Pink? It is a tad south of Norman on hwy 9. Name is self explanatory when you see the place.

My soil is a bit red in places. One of my smallest ponds has quite red water. A mid sized one has mildly redish turbid water. Another 7-8 depending on how you count are pretty clear and the envy of many less fortunate pond owners but not as crystal as 10-12 miles away in Stratford (peach capitol of Oklahoma and quite sandy). My land is not actually very hilly but almost in places. There isn't much real flat land to it. Most is gently rolling and sloped, on average, toward the south and the mighty Canadian river.

I have various colors of clay, red, yellow, even blue, and almost white. Blue and white are not at original grade but several feet down. I have little surface rock, just a couple sandstone outcropings and a couple isolated sandstone bolders (small ones). Driving down the bordering section line in places the road is 15 feet below level of my land so you are treated to a crossectional view of the strata. There is some pretty good views of sandstone, thick strong not crumbly about 10 ft down or so. One of the overflows on a pond meanders a few yards then goes into the next pond downslope. There is exposed sandstone at the bottom of that chasm. I have one canyon (miniature grand canyon looking thing) that is 12-15 feet deep with near vertical sides. There is sandstone at the bottom of that in places. Probably under it all just not all exposed. Maybe in a few years, 2-3, I will have time to try to seal the downstream end of that chasm and get a real deep channel. Now that my expectations for a Kubota L4610 have been adjusted by reality, I may hire a dozer or buy one and resell it in a year or so when the pace of dozer ops dies down.

Be careful, very careful driving out onto dry mud. I have witnessed some pretty scary things. Mud so dry it cracks and rolls up at the surface with cracks below the surface that you can literally put your hand and part of an arm down into but when a jeep starts across it sinks to the frame imediately and is headed down further but I got my winch cable on the guy and pulled him out. Thanks to 12000 lb winches and snatch blocks to double that to 24000 lbs. Sinking vehicles make good anchors and would be much easier to lift than drag.

I'm curious, would you share the size of the pond, method to be employed to clean it out and expected price?

Its hot, I'm tired and lazy, so I just stepped out the door of the shop and banged out a few not very photeginic shots. First is row of pear trees with my mom's new house visible through them. Just to the left (south) of that is a couple ponds (she likes to fish so I put her house by a couple ponds that are pretty to look at and produce 6-7 lb largemouth bass as well as crappie, bluegil, sunfish, perch, and something I haven't identified but it isn't very big (haven't seen catfish in these ponds). Left of those ponds is the hay barn. Just visible to the south of the barn is another pond but you can't see much of it. Maybe one day if everyone doesn't cry "EGOTIST" I'll cruise the place in our little 4WD Dakota we picked up for a farm truck and snap some pictures that show the place to good advantage. From my vantage point you also see my burn barrels, "NEW" overhead diesel tank (4 hrs in sun at auction) and a collection of implements including the cement mixer still in the crate (did I say I was lazy?).

I think I have noticed that you can only send one picture per post so I will attach one to this and send some basically (place holder) posts to xmit others. Hope these shots aren't too depressing. The place looks better from several other vantage points.

Patrick