Short range backstop or berm options

[FJ540]

Do they give grants for ponds? I've always wanted to have a pond and would love to be able to afford one!

Ziegler Cat rents mini excavators for very reasonable rates.

[Ghost]

Do they give grants for ponds? I've always wanted to have a pond and would love to be able to afford one!

The DNR would have stocked our ponds but in order to have them do that you have to allow public fishing.

[Jackpine Savage]

Do they give grants for ponds? I've always wanted to have a pond and would love to be able to afford one!

We had two small dams built for waterfowl. Worked through the NRCS office. It didn't cost us anything. I don't think there were any resources available for digging ponds but that might vary by county/area.

They did provide planning help for digging our own pond. One thing you don't want to do these days is dig in an existing wetland area. They inspected the area and provided the plan and paper work to submit to all the agencies like the DNR and Army Corp of Engineers

[farmerj]

seen backstops made from Cattle feeders made of wood and fronted with dirt. Stack like 4 on top of themselves. Allows for less dirt needed.


Likewise, you could use 4X4 or 6x6 post set at 4-6 foot widths, putting 2X8 up at 45* angle and spacing 12" apart. Front with 24-30" of dirt at thinnest.

May want to consider a slight 10-15° angle forward on the 4x4 to prevent pushing back.

At 8.5 yards, that's about a 70' wide berm.

[farmerj]

Do they give grants for ponds? I've always wanted to have a pond and would love to be able to afford one!

Ziegler Cat rents mini excavators for very reasonable rates.

Hehehehehehe

Fun to operate too. It can be had for $250 a weekend. Rather powerful little item too. Got it from my local bobcat dealer though.

[Ghost]

Do they give grants for ponds? I've always wanted to have a pond and would love to be able to afford one!

Ziegler Cat rents mini excavators for very reasonable rates.

Hehehehehehe

Fun to operate too. It can be had for $250 a weekend. Rather powerful little item too. Got it from my local bobcat dealer though.

miniexcavator.jpg

You aren’t gonna build much of a pond with a mini excavator.

[farmerj]

Sure ya can. It'll just take you longer.

[Ghost]

Sure ya can. It'll just take you longer.

Our best fishing pond was 2 acres and 18’ deep, lol.

[xd ED]

There was a guy who used to use fuel oil and fertilizer "bombs' to dig ponds. He was in northern MN somewhere; BoomPonds, Inc, I believe was his operation.
Back when a friend was expanding the wetlands on his property, he looked into it. They work fast, but the downside was a fair bit of the displaced soil eventually washed back in. I think the guy who ultimately did his had an old fashioned drag line; had part of it financed by a DNR grant.

[Jackpine Savage]

There was a guy who used to use fuel oil and fertilizer "bombs' to dig ponds. He was in northern MN somewhere; BoomPonds, Inc, I believe was his operation.
Back when a friend was expanding the wetlands on his property, he looked into it. They work fast, but the downside was a fair bit of the displaced soil eventually washed back in. I think the guy who ultimately did his had an old fashioned drag line; had part of it financed by a DNR grant.

When I was a kid (70's), our neighbor, who was the high school chemistry teacher, used ANFO to blow a couple of ponds. Another neighbor claimed it cracked his basement. Started a feud that lasted for years.

[farmerj]

Sure ya can. It'll just take you longer.

Our best fishing pond was 2 acres and 18’ deep, lol.

Something that big would change my tactics. It's still a lot cheaper than you think.

[Ghost]

Sure ya can. It'll just take you longer.

Our best fishing pond was 2 acres and 18’ deep, lol.

Something that big would change my tactics. It's still a lot cheaper than you think.

Cat_627K_wheel_tractor_scraper.53f4d3ab64907.jpg

We had the kind you pull behind the tractor. Still prefer the dozer.

[farmerj]

Would really depend how far you want the dirt moved.

[Jackpine Savage]

We had the kind you pull behind the tractor. Still prefer the dozer.

Until it gets wet, then you need a track hoe/excavator.

[FJ540]

I went looking at the county ordinances again last night and it says I can sort and stockpile fill for future use without a CUP as long as it's for non-commercial/personal use and outside the RLZ (rear lot zone 900' surrounding lakes) without an annual capped volume. Digging deeper, there's all kinds of little catches like you can't have an extractive use pit within 50' of your lot line without neighbor's permission (my pond is 35' and my neighbor doesn't give a "poop" - his words). My outside berm would be within 20' of the lot line (part of why I want it), and that could be seen as an issue.

I think I either need to decide to go with the plain-English of the code as I read last night and stop looking deeper, or go to the county and be sure. I'm leaning towards the former since I don't like the peons they've hired recently in the specialty divisions within the Land Services department. Let them find it on their aerial photos and then contact me; I can point them to the exemption and they can try to push the issue if they want. We have commercial gravel pits in 3 directions of my place, so I don't see how my digging one for myself would be a problem.

I got a few hundred yards of sand dug out of my 1/16 acre pond in 16 hours using a Cat 305 mini-ex. If you're good with equipment and have the work ethic, you can get a lot done with smaller machines. I never did verify how deep my pond got, but I can tell you it's melting the snow in the middle of it when the ground around it is not. It might not be freezing to the bottom like I expected it did. Sometime this summer I need to take a swim and find out. When I was digging it, I was below the ground water table, so I was working blind the whole time.

Like Jon says - you might be surprised how reasonable the big toys are to rent. It'll cost you several hundred dollars for delivery/return via semi, but the weekly rates on a D6 are still only like $1200.