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permaculture - [permaculture] getting water over pond dams without erosion

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  • From: Paul Wheaton <paul@richsoil.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] getting water over pond dams without erosion
  • Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 04:54:47 -0700 (PDT)

I have 80 acres and two ponds. Next year I plan on expanding/reworking these
two ponds,
plus adding another dozen ponds (plus some swales and some Holtz-style
terraces).

The two existing dams use culverts to carry the water across the dam. On
both dams, the
culverts have lots of problems.

On the upper pond, the culvert is high and frost heaves in the winter move
it. Two
winters ago the culvert was heaved so that the intake was higher than the dam
and water
ran over the top of the dam. Plus water finds its way around the culvert and
is starting
to erode the dam.

On the lower pond, water is finding its way around the culvert and is
starting to erode
the dam.

In the summer, the amount of water flow here is very small. So small, that
the water
tends to go underground in many places. The water running into the upper
pond is pretty
good. The runoff from that pond eventually ends up at the lower pond where
the water
running into that pond is zero. Without fresh water, the water becomes warm
and oxygen
becomes too low, making aquaculture projects difficult if not impossible.
I'm thinking
that the solution is to make series of ponds with the runoff from any pond
running into
something water tight and carrying the water to the next pond. Either a poly
pipe (which
wouldn't be enough for the spring flow, but enough for summer) or a series of
cement
catch basins/troughs.

Each of these ideas has problems, not to mention expense.

I'm hoping that folks with more permaculture experience can get me going in
the right direction.




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