Available Manufacturing Company

[DMiller]

Got me to wondering, we have a different kind of soil here: Loess, that looks and acts like clay UNTIL it gets wet, really wet. It is not sticky like clay when digging where it does allow root structure to root really deep in the soil, can cut a square corner ditch in the stuff and will hold damp or dry as the soil is square edge granular, get it soaking wet and it will slough like a worst nightmare. The wonder part is I wonder if that is what you are in? Similar ground look to here.

Problem here is a shallow pond is fine, a deeper fill pond dam has to be underbuilt with hauled in clay into a key slot for here to hold as the Loess will leach water from day one until gets wet enough to slough.

 

[td25c]

That's a good question DMiller .

This is mostly clay dirt where the hoe has hogged out with the exception at the lower part of the picture .

Notice a gray / bluish color . That's where the shale layer starts . It breaks up & compacts pretty good , allot of it got mixed in with the clay dirt .


Ended up going another 5 feet deeper , man I was scratching for every spoon full of material I could get .

Got done with it yesterday evening , installed 4" overflow pipe 4' below the top of the dam & emergency spillway 2' below the dam . Cut the emergency spillway 12' wide " dozer blade width " and was able to use that dirt to help finish the dam .

I'm optimistic about it . After further investigation I believe the dam failed more from the " top down " rather than the whole dam slipping from the bottom .

This is what I call a " hill pond " . Have to build a big circular dam compared to the water capacity . Generally try to talk customers out of these but they wanted it where it is due to the elevation so they can pipe water to cattle in different areas .