Saving the pond, erosion control project

[RedRock]

Inspired by the works of EddieWalker and jinman, I've decided to start a thread on saving my man-made pond here in North Texas. Here in Eddie's thread I posted some pictures of how the pond looked when I bought the place, freshly dozed and tin horns in place. EddiesLake

Right now my main problem is that the rain itself causes immediate erosion around the end of the tinhorns so I put some crude erosion control measures into place using burlap, mulch, grass and some stones to hold the burlap until the grass can get better established. Over time, I'll probably add more dirt and contour the areas around the water entrance and exit using the FEL on my tractor.
Here's a shot of the entrance for overflow, second and third picture is where the water exits on the other side, last picture is where the water flows down into what used to be the continuation of the creek, but is now the other side of the dam, this is a very steep and deep drop off, at least 15ft. down from where the photo is being taken from. I'm pretty concerned about what might happen in this area if there were sustained rains for too long. So far I've been able to repair it using my tractor after each rain.

 

[RedRock]

Here's a little video I made that shows how an existing ravine fed into this same creek before it was a pond. Managing the big trench
See also Texoma Fossils

 

[RedRock]

Drop off on other side of dam, from above

from below

another unique angle

 

[sfloggie]

Very beautiful land.
I owned 80 acres in Arcadia, OK for a while and it had a 20 wide by almost 20 foot deep creek that flowed North into the Deep Fork River. There was serious erosion at one point that I was able to fix. At times the creek was over flowing especially when the river would be so full the creek could not flow into it. Sold it when I experienced Adverse Possession by a neighbor when I surveyed and installed a fence with her initial agreement!
Thankfully we found a 112 acre piece near our home in VA. We plan to put in a pond and looking at yours plus the discussion was good. Thanks for sharing.

Jim

 

[greasemonkeyok]

For a while raw land around Arcadia was selling for an absolute premium. That has all stopped now.

As for erosion, Google "grass Pavers" or "Turf Pavers." There are several different manufacturers and once the grass takes hold, they do a good job. No ruts when you drive over them with heavy equipment in wet weather.

 

[jinman]

From the looks of your video, I'd say that the swale leading into your pond has been filled with dozed cedar and oak to provide some level of filtraton for the incoming water. Because the trees were just pushed in without being cut up, they don't provide a substantial barrier to stopping silt like a series of hay bale dams would. Frankly, the cedars are just stopping you from being able to prepare the area and plant grass or other vegetation in the area. A wet area full of cattails would probably provide better erosion control than those cedars. If they could be compressed into much tighter piles, they might actually help, but it seems to me they are just in the way for working the issue at the moment. That's how I see your inlet issue from just a very cursory exam of your video.

When I look at your culvert horns, I just want to start collection all the softball to football sized rocks I can find and put them at the sides of the culverts where drainage from the road/dam is starting to create erosion at the edges. This insidious erosion will eventually work its way back across your dam and completely wash out your horns. You have to stop that action and I don't know of anything better than small stones except maybe some stones and a bag of sakrete poured around them so it will set up and hold them in place. As Eddie did, some people stack bags of sakrete to the sides and make a flare around the ends of the horns to stop erosion. I think the best solution is a compbination of both concrete and rocks.

It's also obvious that a lot of silt seems to be coming through your horns from the pond. Is that right? The outlet side looks like material is building up there and I'm just guessing it is coming out the horns. It might be washing down the sides of your outlet swale, but I can't tell for sure. I would dig that area out and try to get some rock in there. If you don't have rock, maybe you could get some old busted brick from a construction site. I like scrap brick as a material because it is such a great size to work with and can be easily hauled/handled. It will soon fill in with silt, so that it doesn't look trashy for very long, even if it seems that way at first.

. . . just my ideas from a first look. Eddie will surely have more or better suggestions.

 

[RedRock]

Jinman, yeah you're right about the big trench, it's a big cluttered mess at the moment and will take a lot of work to clean up and make presentable someday. Thanks for all the other tips, I'll be implementing some along the way.

 

[jml755]

I second what Jinman said about the rocks around the culverts. Attached is a pic of the rip-rap I added to mine. What you see came from the removal of a sidewalk behind my house that I repoured. These pieces came from a 3'x15'x4" slab. I've since added a bit more and busted some of the bigger pieces into softball or slightly larger size. They bust real easy with a small sledge hammer. I've also used readi-mix bags around a couple of smaller culverts (8" dia) to reduce erosion. Just keep an eye out for people repouring their drives and porches, etc. I'm sure the contractor would love to let you take a few pieces of slab.

 

[RedRock]

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated my thread here, I'm going to post a few updated pictures but I'll try to take some more current ones this weekend. Basically, I took the advice and started collecting some concrete chunks, brick etc. to help with the erosion. As you can see in this pic(albeit not a very good one) I've added some chunks of concrete around the tinhorns of the pond spillway... I'm using my pump to try and battle the drought here in N. Texas

 

[jinman]

Good to see you are back Sandusky. I'll be lookin' forward to more photos. You just can't look at too many photos of water while in the middle of drought.