Digging a pond...

reddog

reddog

Well-known member
I've got a wetland area scoped out for a permanent pond. I hired an engineering firm to look at the drainage and pond layout and they gave me topo drawings and the layout of the pond. I have $800 invested in engineering at this time. I brought a back hoe out last night about 6 pm and dug a trough/ test hole 13 feet deep. This morning at 7 am, I had 8 feet of water in the test hole. This evening, I had 9 feet of water. It's been very dry, so I'm optomistic that I will have water if I chose to go ahead.

The area of the pond squared off is 125 feet east to west and 175 feet north to south. If I average a ten foot depth. I'm going to be moving roughly 8500 cu yards of material of which about 3000 of it is good black soil..

I don't really have the ability on my ten acres to stockpile the dirt, nor do I want to.

Does anybody have any idea what it costs to move that amount of dirt? They're redoing a dirt race track 20 miles north of me and I would gladly give them the black dirt if they would haul it.

I'm not sure if I want to spend the money to make the pond. I have quite a bit of equipment at my disposal to finish it off. Plenty of rocks, a 10 foot blade scraper, a skidloader. A 90 horse John Deere 4000 tractor.


As much as I would love a pond... Not sure I'm going to pull the trigger on it. My old prairie contact told me that there is no cheaper way to add value to my property than adding water to it.

What do you guys think?
 
Go for it-- I did two of them last fall and wonder why I waited so long:D
 
Defined the area this afternoon..




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Might want to check with the county or if any road construction projects in the area. Maybe do a large scale berm. Pheasants love railroad tracks, I always thought it would be neat to incorporate that in a wildlife area.
 
Might be worth your while to advertise locally to sell that black dirt. Builders, contractors, city project managers...whole bunch of folks have need of it and you might get some of your investment back, especially if you can leave for a month or two so they can schedule their pickup. Somehow, and I believe it is a specialized art, a utilities or plumbing crew can manage to perfect invert the topsoil and clay on a project. When they're done, you can make ceramics out of the soil on top, and all the rich, black soil is at the bottom of the trench or hole.

Don't deliver, you pile it up, they pick it up.


Nice project. Water is just better, somehow. Best wishes.:thumbsup:
 
I've had good luck posting things I want to get rid of on Craigslist either for free or they pay you. I had an old chainlink fence that I thought would be a huge pain to remove and dispose of and my wife suggested posting it on craigslist. I had 10 replies in the hour and it was gone the next day! You would be surprised how many people out there who want things that seem worthless to you. Especially if it's free/cheap.
 
I had a guy come out last week and look the project over. Should I decide to move forward, it will be in the fall, after the crops are out so we can haul everything out over the corn field, and then dress it up when we were done. This saves tearing up my whole acreage.

They indicated they would be interested in the dirt, both the black and the clay, as they have room to store if a couple miles away from my house.

I told him that basically, the whole project hinged on what my final costs would be. Ill gladly give the dirt away, but don't want to give it away, and pay for the trucking out. I don't need, or want a pond that badly..

Another option, would be to take the black dirt opff with a scraper and just haul it out to the cornfield just across the fence, and then dispose of the clay.

He is supposed to get back to me with a proposal.

In the mean time, I have ten feet of water in the hole now. :)
 
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39k if they spread the dirt on the neighboring field. 49k if they hail it two miles. Yikes. I think it will be a melon patch next year.
 
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