This Pond Almost Failed… Now It’s Facing Its First Real Test

[00:00:00]Why don't you all come along with me and we'll head out across this field here.

[00:00:09]And the pond is absolutely beautiful. Hey everybody, it's Brian here, the land guy. You are in for a treat today because we have another pond update video that we're going to do.

[00:00:20]It's not going to be super long or anything, but I just got a call from the landowner over the weekend and he said, "Brian, that repair that you made on my pond dam is working." He said the pond is actually full now and he says it looks really, really great. And he says, "Hey, why don't you come out and shoot some video and take a look at it and let your audience see how the pond is looking and shaping up right now."

[00:00:44]So, I did a video here not long ago about a pond dam repair, about this culvert uh that this landowner had on this newly acquired property that he just bought and the culvert wasn't enough for a flood that evidently this land had several years ago and the previous landowner never did do anything with it or even try to fix it. And I shot a video about what I did to be able to fix this and what happened is that culvert wasn't enough to carry that water during a torrential downpour.

[00:01:17]So, this pond didn't even have an emergency spillway. All it was relying on was this huge culvert that wasn't enough. So, we're actually headed out right now. We're going to take a look at it this morning and just kind of brief you on how it's doing and what it's looking like right now. So, hang tight.

[00:01:36]All right. Well, we just arrived out here. We're going to be driving out across the field to this pond location.

[00:01:42]We've been getting a lot of rain and because of all the rain we've been getting, uh these ponds that I've been working on for the past several months are getting full and I hope that you've been uh encouraged uh by some of these pond update videos that I've been doing.

[00:02:20]>> [music] [music] >> Let's go ahead and take a look at this out here. Just got out here and you can see he's already got his livestock out here and the pond is absolutely beautiful.

[00:02:51]He told me that the water got up to that culvert and I want to take you down here and show you a little bit about what we did to get this thing fixed up and the repair and the reasons why.

[00:03:03]And if you've not watched that video, I'll throw it up on the screen. That way you folks can see exactly what I did and I kind of talked through the process.

[00:03:13]Um, and then also I'll link it in the description, too.

[00:03:17]But you'll see here that the dam starts right in here and I'll kind of explain what's going on here.

[00:03:25]But as we walk over here, you'll see this dam goes all the way this way.

[00:03:30]And what happened is this culvert was the only overflow that this pond had.

[00:03:39]It's about a 36-in pipe. It might be close to 40, somewhere in there.

[00:03:44]But what happened during a big rain event that happened, I don't know how many years ago, it's been several years.

[00:03:50]All the watershed that this pond uh, receives, I mean it's like several acres that comes down through here. And plus with it being spring fed, you've got additional water coming in. And during a big flood event that ever that somehow happened down through here, this got to the point where it couldn't carry all the excess water that was coming here, and the water began to rise and over topple the pond dam and washed all of this out here around the dam. You couldn't even drive across here because half of the culvert was exposed here, and it was washed out probably a good 30 to 40-ft deep here on this side. It was just amazing of how much water was coming out there. So, what we ended up doing is we came in here, looked it over, and seen what the issue was.

[00:04:45]This did not have an emergency spillway at all incorporated into this pond dam.

[00:04:52]The culvert was the only thing that any overflow was to go through. And for some reason, if there was a big rain event, if the culvert got full, the water just kept rising or would keep rising and over top of the pond dam. And that's exactly what happened. So, whenever we came in here and redid this, I told the landowner, I said, "Let me take all of this clay, this material here, let's shave it all out, and let's get all of this filled back in properly, and I've compacted it. I had a little D3 dozer out here, and that's what I did to get that all fixed up." After I did that, then I came in here, I raised this up because used to there was probably only maybe a foot of coverage over the top of this pipe.

[00:05:41]Uh so, I added about another 2-ft on top of this, and then I built an emergency spillway over there.

[00:05:50]You've got to have that. If you've got a culvert system in your pond, you have to have some kind of an emergency spillway in case this thing gets full or it gets stopped up with debris. And you can already see some of the debris here that's already washing in here. You've got a round bale.

[00:06:08]You've got part of a tree here.

[00:06:10]Anything during a flooding event can come down through here and it can stop that up. So, you got to make sure you keep that culvert clean. But, if that gets stopped up or it gets full of water, you have to have another source of spillway incorporated into your pond dam or the water's going to overtop of your dam and then wash it out. And you don't want that to happen. So, what I ended up doing, I came out here and shot grade.

[00:06:37]And I determined that once this culvert gets full of water here, what will happen next, the emergency spillway would begin to take over. And this spillway is the the height of it is about the same as the top of that culvert there.

[00:06:58]So, instead of that water overtopping the dam, it'll overtop here. And I made this thing about 8-ft wide to catch any excess flooding water. And it will come through here and then it'll go all the way down through here and then it'll kind of run off in that valley.

[00:07:16]I did not want that water to come around this emergency spillway and then pour into the same area that that culvert is pouring into because I knew that any amount of water that's coming through here is going to erode this that we filled in.

[00:07:34]So, the water's going to be coming down through here and you'll see already where some of the water rainfall has come down through here and ran down through there before it went off into that valley. Now, the landowner did come out here and throw some grass and some soil in here.

[00:07:50]It's not holding really good because of the amount of clay, but I did encourage him to come down here and bring some shot rock, some ditch liner rock, or something to keep water from eroding because if you walk down through here, you see water coming out of the culvert, and already what it's doing is already trying to erode this down in here.

[00:08:15]So, it's going to be super important if he wants this to hold and not wash out, he's going to have to bring some rock in here to get this to hold.

[00:08:27]Now, this is doing okay. Now, if this culvert was ever running full, the amount of water that would be coming down here would really eat this out.

[00:08:37]So, whenever I get a chance to talk with him, I'm going to encourage him. He needs to bring in a couple dump truck loads of some rock. And if he needs help getting it spread out, I'll be sure to help, but he does have a skid steer.

[00:08:50]And I think if those dump trucks can come in here and dump some stuff here, he can get that pushed down in there and kind of get that lined. In fact, it may take more than two dump truck loads. You may put a load down there all by itself.

[00:09:03]Kind of got all this filled in, raised the dam in this area, and then built an emergency spillway here.

[00:09:12]Now, when we did this, this water level was super low.

[00:09:16]Now, I showed you some pictures of what it looked like several months ago during the drought, and this was really really low.

[00:09:25]But now, it it looks really good.

[00:09:28]This pond is super deep. They say it could be anywhere up to 30 to 40 ft deep right down here in amongst of this valley here.

[00:09:38]But I don't know if it's that deep or not.

[00:09:41]They say this thing's got some big big fish in it.

[00:09:47]Let's walk over here to the other side and I'll show you and then we'll kind of end the video.

[00:09:55]Hello cows, I know you're wondering what I'm up to.

[00:09:59]>> [groaning and screaming] >> And you guys know me, the land guy. I'm not in favor of having trees on the inside of your pond dam like this one and that one.

[00:10:14]And if you've got those, I would encourage you to cut those things out cuz what's going to happen is that root system is going to grow through the pond dam and then before you know it, the water is going to find its way through that root system or through the roots out to the backside of the pond dam and you don't want that to happen.

[00:10:34]So yeah, he's got he's got watershed here coming from this little valley.

[00:10:39]He's got it coming from there. He's got another little feeder valley there.

[00:10:43]There's just a lot of water that comes down here to fill this thing.

[00:10:48]This is 2 acres in size is what it measures.

[00:10:53]And you'll hold a lot of water.

[00:10:57]Especially if it's really that deep like what they say.

[00:11:02]You're looking at 7 to 8 million gallon of water in this pond.

[00:11:07]That's a lot.

[00:11:08]Lots of water. Hopefully you've enjoyed this pond update on this pond dam repair that we did a few months ago or a couple months ago.

[00:11:15]The landowner was just really excited because he said the pond looked really good. It's It has gotten full over the previous rainfall amounts that we have gotten here lately and the culvert seems to be working good.

[00:11:29]And Uh, the water still has a ways to go before it would even reach the emergency spillway.

[00:11:35]So, that's all looking good. The only concern I would have here is to get some ditch liner rock in there to keep that from eroding more than what it is.

[00:11:46]Make sure you leave me a comment if you've got better ideas of what you think you can do to prevent erosion. I'd like to hear what kind of feedback you have here.

[00:11:56]Well, hopefully you folks enjoyed this update video here. If you've got uh any comments, make sure you leave a comment. Give us a thumbs up and if you're not a subscriber to the channel, you're welcome. I'd love for you to follow us along as we go and we help out these landowners improve their land, fix their ponds, and even build ponds. Catch you in the next land video. All right, over and out. I've got to get to work.

[00:12:18]Bye-bye.

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