The Fairly Big Dig

[streamin]

I think I may have a similar soil make/up in the franklinville area. I wanted to go about 20 feet and 1.5-2 acre pond. Seems I have about 1 foot of topsoil before some clay and water close to the surface.Any suggestions?

 

[deputyrpa]

I think I may have a similar soil make/up in the franklinville area. I wanted to go about 20 feet and 1.5-2 acre pond. Seems I have about 1 foot of topsoil before some clay and water close to the surface.Any suggestions?

Dig several test pits. You may have a perched water table, and you want to know the substrate deeper down.

 

[Oleozz]

Great pics deputyrpa.
Always wanted a pond on our place but it seemed cost prohibitive. My neighbor has an excavation business with all the equipment needed and he is always bugging me about when he can build a "lake" for me. The county ag office used to cost share for pond building but that practice has ended.

 

[jimmyj]

Fascinating about the perched water table. Your project looks better all the time. Can't wait to see the pond when it is finished and full of water.

Do you expect to circulate it or anything to help the fish with oxygen in the winter? We have a smaller pond than yours and the fish die off every few years. Not all of them mind you but quite a few. We just put goldfish in, the pond is about 100 feet long and maybe 10 or 12 feet deep in the middle. I've pondered an aerator for years.

Long live Zappa!

 

[JoelD]

One either provides a surface water source (and discharge) and seals the bottom with clay to prevent infiltration, or one digs one in areas of high groundwater elevation, where permability is a benefit. In doing the latter, I am basically daylighting the groundwater which has flowed down the mountain atop bedrock by removing the gravel it has saturated. As you can see in the pics, the groundwater is perched upon that thick (probably about 6') blue clay layer. If we punched through that, the water may go down the drain! The gravel is confined between blue clay on the bottom, and clayey topsoil.

The water will eventually be clear...and COLD, and is going to be a swimmable pond.

PS....CAT controls seem foreign after some time with Deere controls. I wasted some diesel a few hours ago moving some schlop. However, that "flaw" is WAY eclipsed by the sheer power of that machine. It makes my BH90X seem like a bent spoon......Look at the smile on Nicola's face!

You really haven't dug until you operate an excavator, a purpose built machine, they are amazing at doing what it is they do.

Deputy, how does the water get to the top of the pond? If you don't provide a surface water source how will the pond fill up to the top?

I've often thought about how man made ponds work, I get the idea of digging a hole near a stream and diverting the stream into and then out of the hole and the stream fills the hole and keeps the water fresh.

It's the bottoms up part I don't get.

Thanks for the great pictures.

Thanks,
Joel

 

[deputyrpa]

Yeah, I've operated several excavators, up to 322 size and also a 70' stick, but not one of this size and power. It's awesome. I spent a little time on it today, but because of the rain last night, the spoil is still schloppy. The computer operator controls are really handy too.

There is two feet of grade from one side of the pond to the other. The berm levels that out. Once the pond fills, we will finish the berm grade using the water as a "level". I expect to have a little more than 1 foot of freeboard on the pond berm. That means that the pool elevation will be a little less than 1 foot below the top, allowing for storm storage from stream overflow, helping the stream disssipate energy as it had when the area was a field. Two perched springs are at the elevation. One spring is a bit lower. The overall groundwater field is about 2 feet down. If I need a faster rate of water exchange, I can add a water intake pipe and discharge pipe. The intake can be used to spill water over rocks to increase aeration for improved dissolved oxygen.

Water flows underground too. Digging a hole to expose groundwater does not interupt that flow. That's how you get water in your well.....it flows there.

 

[JoelD]

Thanks,
I understand,

I could operate those machines all day, I remember my first hydraulic machine was a homemade caddigger backhoe on wheels. A guy in VT built it, rock solid, awsome little machine. I'd litterally spend 10 hours straight on it. I wore out the rings on the 5 hp motor in a year.

Machines are way cool in my book.

Joel

 

[deputyrpa]

I remember saying to myself on Friday...."I could do this for a living". But then I realized operating is one of the few fun parts of being an excavating contractor