"Homer" wrote in message
...

Here in texas, you check with Agriculture County office.


On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:17:51 GMT, "k"
wrote:

I have to replace the dam on my pond, after maintaining the old one for
20+
years. The dam is concrete over earth, and the April floods caused a
top-to-bottom crack in the concrete part, and now a whole section has
shifted.. I can get some $ help from the vol fire dept, because they
created an area to pump water from a few years back, and rely on the pond
for local fire protection.

Back then, they drained the pond with huge pumps in order to dig their
holes
and line them, so I suppose that's the best way to allow for a pour once
the
old cement is pulled out.

I just don't know much about this, and haven't been able to find an
engineer
locally who know a lot more than I do.

The hydraulics are this: The pond is about 1/3 acre in size, with an
average depth of about 5 ft, and a pocket that goes down about 15 ft.
It's
fed by a brook that floods with rain, and never, ever goes dry.
Also,spring
water bubbles up in three different areas. It was originally dug out and
dammed around 1950 as a swimming hole for the then owner

When we moved here, there was a local source of clay: a brickyard, which
has
since closed up. I could patch leaks with that clay and, believe it or
not,
brown plastic bags.

I can get an idea of the original construction just from looking. The
lower
dam is boulders and dirt, probably clay, and the concrete was poured on
the
uneven surface of the rocks. The uneven area at the bottom is where I did
a
little patching every year.

The concrete portion is 15 ft wide by about 3 ft high and 18" thick, and
it's concrete with a lot of stone in it, probably 2" stuff.

My question: what do I do to get this right, and earn a permit without a
year's worth of inland wetlands intervention? I realize I'm looking at
some
serious money, but I have some equipment to mitigate that. I still have
to
hire somebody for forming, and someone else to do the pour, but what do I
need to make it right?

I'm hoping for real-world experience, but speculation from other smart
people is certainly welcome.

thanks in advance,
Keith


Thanks to you who have responded so far.

This is Connecticut, and it's not a friendly place if you want to mess with
water. A long time ago, after hurricane Gloria, I pulled the plug on the
pond because it was full of broken trees that the town ordered me to remove
, and I got in trouble that took three years and about three thousand
dollars to get out of. I've tried to avoid 'help' ever since. A company
not far from here had to pay about 80K in inspections, evaluations, fees and
fines to clean up an old pond that they wanted to donate to the town as a
park. Mind you, that was just for the permits, and it was twenty years ago.

The only good thing that came out of my earlier experience was a ruling that
Inland Wetlands didn't have the jurisdiction over 'forces of nature' which
they had claimed prior to that.

Basically, I'm saying that they are not friendly to landowners here, and the
public resources others have, I don't. I haven't found an engineer yet who
will admit to knowing about dams or ponds. At this point I'm hoping the
fire dept. will get an 'order' to force me to repair the dam in the most
expedient way, which will be my salvation from the permitting process.

So I just want to know how to do it right. Hasn't someone here poured
concrete across a watercourse? I want to do this right, but I can't take
another round with the wetlands group, whose regulations are written to put
the same requirements on homeowners as they do on riverfront manufacturing
facilities. I can't afford it.

thx