An amazing video clip that illustrates the amount of energy and effort it takes to build a man-made pond. As Joel Salatin mentions in our previous podcast with him, the building of ponds are one solution to mitigating drought conditions and hydrating the landscape of sustainable family farms.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/pond-construction-video/
I had planned to rent a backhoe for the weekend this summer to dig my own pond but after watching this video, I may have underestimated the workload. Maybe a smaller pond to start
We had a pond dug about 10 years ago. A local guy with a bulldozer did all the work for around $1,500. We were lucky as we had a site that was a natural for a pond. It was already a depression that had been wet for eons. It was all clay unlike the soil on the rest of our property, which is classified gravelly loam. If it hadn't already been clay, we would have had to get some shipped in to line the pond. The site was so wet that it had been tiled some time before our immediate predecessors bought the place, and they lived here for 32 years before we bought from them 20 years ago. They did not know it was tiled.
We have natural springs feeding the pond and some run-off from across a road through a culvert. During a dry spell when a neighbor's pond was down about 8 ft, ours was down about a foot. It is only about 1/4 acre in size and is essentially shaped like a bowl. If I were to do it over, I would want a more complex shoreline that would maximize the benefits of having an edge environment.
I had to get it approved by the state environmental agency which required digging two pits 8 ft deep to test the soil. Also, I don't know what kind of terrain you have, but I wish I had had the area surveyed because perceptions looking at the site are very misleading. A heavy rain and/or snowmelt will overwhelm the spillway that empties into an intermittent stream, and the pond backs up creating a stream by my house. I never guessed that would happen just by eyeballing the land.
Good luck, we love our pond. It's near our garden making emergency watering easier than pumping from our house well which is about 100 yards away and downhill.
Doug