The Lake

Discussion in 'Back to Basics' started by Thunder5Ranch, Jul 22, 2022.


  1. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    Today was the day to make my final decisions on the last parts of the lake. The building part will be completed by Wednesday night. I have had a raging internal debate of how much land to trade for water. I can take it down as small as 9-10 acres or as big as 20 acres..... Or somewhere in between.

    So I opted to go a combination of 20 and in between. It is going to be a base 12 acres of water year round but will back up February through May and cover another 8 acres of low area. Then it will recede back to the base 12 totally by July. This will give a back up buffer to the spillway, it is not uncommon for us to get 6-7" of rain over 4-5 days and those two water ways turn into raging little rivers. I am making the spillway 16' wide and 48" deep that will handle A LOT of water going out. If it proves to not be sufficient I can take the backhoe and drop it another 12" to handle draining even more water. Going to run with that and see how it works and adjust from there. Can pack more clay and pour more concrete to raise the spill way. Every 1' high or Lower the spillway depth is = 250 feet farther up the South Arm it goes and 150 feet into the woods it goes. I will probably be playing with the depth and width of the spillway for several years. In theory I could cut another spillway into the Northwest corner and make both SW and NW 16' wide and both end 24" deep and have the same water volume release as the 16" x48" single spillway. Doing that would increase the lake size to cover the full 20 acres year round. But for now going with the single and saving several acres of pasture.

    We have hit 5 very good springs in the excavating. I put my plunger pipe and flow meter on them before marking them with GPS and covering them back up and packing a couple feet of clay on them to reseal them. Strongest one is sending out 70GPM weakest is flowing out 30GPM. Simple water physics, the aquifer we are on top of is not a nice level body of underground water it goes up and down in waves with the contour of the different layers of ground. The 70GPM flow spring is at the bottom of one of those waves so the water above it higher on the wave pushes down forcing the water to flow out of the ground. If the pressure on the hole the water is flowing out of is greater than the pressure of the water forcing the flow the flow comes to a stop. The packed clay in this case is the pressure or cork in the bottle to stop the free flow. LOL we strike flowing ground water here all of the time at 1' - 4' down in places where the water is closest to the surface. We hit these springs in the lake bottom at 12' and 14 feet down. Won't bore you to death with the math, geology and physics of it.

    But if We take a couple track how buckets out ontop of those springs at the tail end of the building. They will free flow even under 20 feet of water on top of them. Given that we are bone dry and the aquifer is at its minimum right now that would equate to a nice spring fed lake. Draw backs to that are the water coming out of those springs is running a cool 45 degrees. There is more than enough flow that it would reduce the overall lake water temp by around 7-10 degrees that is a plus and drawback at the same time. Second plus/drawback is that there is enough flow out of them that water flow over the spillway would be a constant small stream. In turn that would make the wet weather creek a year round slow flowing creek. So the question is whether to break into those springs and open them up all the way or keep them corked. I have until Wednesday to weigh and ponder that one.

    The last big choice to make came from a half acre knob of land that we could dig out and move into a pile out of the lake bed or leave as is and dig around it making it a island. SO after about 2 seconds of debate I told them to raise the half acres up another 4 feet with the excess clay we have and then put a foot of top soil on top of the clay. I am going to have a half acre island! Hey lets be honest who wouldn't want a Private Island to hide on........ even if it is just small island :)

    Gotta give the Excavators a big KUDOs on the job they have done. They have followed my plans and instructions to the letter and done everything I wanted done. And suggested several things that I had not thought of LIKE THE ISLAND, That will be a day and a half less work for them on this job and will create something I will really enjoy. They got her every morning at 7:30 and worked every day until 6:30 And they have moved one hell of a lot of dirt!

    Dam turned out to be 310 feet wide at the base from side to side sloping to a top that will be 90 feet across the top and gently sloping top soil down the back side. From one end to the other the dam is 1200 feet long. If you know anything about Earthwork..... You know that is a massive huge amount of clay and top soil to move.



    Final lake1.


    Pic of the back side of the dam 2 days ago. And of Izzapoo catching a crawdad and not sure what to do with after the captured it. After it pinched her nose she decided to play it safe and just eat it. Spillway will be in the virgin clay behind the skid steer and flow down to the creek between the woods and back of the dam. Going to terrace down the slope with rip rap.
    DSC02971.JPG

    Dam 2 days ago, it is a lot bigger tonight than it was then. Didn't have the camera with me this even for our drive down to the corner. Kind of tight on the back side of the dam. My West Property line is 60 feet into the woods. Adjacent owner of the West side is a good guy and I think he is more excited about the lake than I am. But I have learned with property lines to keep everything I do contained to my side of the line, even if the current owner is amicable to things crossing the line, if it were ever sold, the next property owner might not be so amicable.
    DSC02966.JPG

    Again two days ago, It is a whole lot wider and taller this evening. Center top to center base is only going to be 18' tall but the water depth in the deep bowl on the water side of the dam with make the depth around 22-24 feet. North end of the dam is about 200' in front of the roller. We did a bit of overkill on the end Keys in both width, depth and length. LOL this lake should be here for several hundred years after I am worm food.

    DSC02961.JPG

    All of that ramp is behind the dam now, they used it to push the clay they mined out of the big hole North and East of the mound of top soil, the whole ramp is top soil and good sub soil they got 14 feet of good gold clay out of that hole before starting to get into the sand/clay mix. That hole is about 2.5 acres and it made the back slop top soil of the dam and the core of the dam. The slope of the water side of the dam is coming from the big deep oblong bowl behind the water side of the dam. Clay there goes down 12 feet and we are going to take 9 feet of to build the slope Monday and Tuesday.
    DSC02977.JPG

    If we did not hit stink mud in the low spots or only a couple feet of stink mud we were going to take the draws down about 4' to clay. We hit stink mud at 2 feet down and the stink mud goes at least 14 feet deep. What is odd is that there is about 6" of good top soil ontop of 3.5 feet of clay and then bottomless stink mud under the clay. This pic is after the top soil and very thin layer of subsoil was scraped off the surface of the North arm. Then bottomless stink mud under the clay. Usually no clay on top of the stink mud. Stink Mud BTW is millions of years of layers of dead vegetation, sediment, dead vegetation and repeat layer after layer and millions of layers, like a layer for every year it built up. It is found in the low spots and varies in depth from region to region. It is always soupy wet, smells like raw sewage and in general is just nasty stuff. It does have some redeeming qualities though. If dried out and spread it is really just nutrient rich top soil. If it was only 2-4 feet deep I would have had them push out and up on the field and spread it on the fields and pastures later........ Literally better than manure ;) In this case going through 14 feet of depth into it and still not hitting the bottom......... I am like put the 3.5 feet of clay back and forget about digging and scraping it out. I can't even imagine how millions if not 100s of millions of years it took to make that depth of stink mud! Best to just leave it sealed up under the clay and forget about it for this project. LOL the North and South Arm will only be 6-8 feet deep in center rather than 10-12 feet. Some things are just left buried and pushing that stinking mess out would have added another $40,000 to the project and take another 3 weeks assuming the depth of it did not go much deeper than the 14 feet. What I am left to ponder is how 3.5 feet of deep good golden clay came to be on top of bottomless stink mud. Gotta wonder if it came to be during one of the big New Madrid Quakes that rock this area every so often throughout history. LOL if one of those quakes made the Mississippi River Flow North instead of South, I imagine moving a few million tons of clay would be childs play. DSC02951.JPG

    I still want to name it Lake Placid and stock it with Giant Mutant Gators....... Mrs T5R still says NO!!!
     
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  2. Wildbilly

    Wildbilly Monkey+++

    Hope you gave some though to installing a small hydroelectric system. Now would be the time to do it!
     
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  3. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    Won't be enough water flow to generate electric on a regular basis. Total flow from the springs would be max 220GPM Once under 14-22 feet of water that flow would be restricted by the above water pressure on the holes by around 35% making the constant flow over the spillway a trickle of 140-145gmp. Also a unknown if the flow from the springs will remain consistent over the long term. Could very well be that the water pressure created from the high point to low point will be maintained or if the drain from the springs will bring the high point down and level out.

    Kind of rough but the general idea of how it works under ground here. If the spring simply vents the pressure from the water higher in the spring out and the water level contained in the sand/sandstone lowers and is not replenished from the water higher up than it is then the GPM flow will decrease with the drop in the water level above it. If the land higher than the low high point feeding the spring replenishes the water at the same rate that the spring vents it the flow would continue at whatever the replenishment rate above it is. The base line is the consistent water level below all of the peaks and troughs in the substructure of the land. Lots of unknowns in that structure and mapping it with ground penetrating radar is EXPENSIVE. Does the water feeding the springs connect to the larger area of ground water? Is it just a pocket of ground water in the series of peaks and troughs?

    spring flow.
    Won't know the answer to any of the questions until the springs are dug into and we see how long and how fast the water flows out of them. If it is just a contained peak with a few hundred thousand gallons of water in it, the flow from the springs will consistently decrease as the peak water level drops until all flow stops. Could also act like a chicken watrerer and the water in the lake reaches a certain level and the flow balances out and stops.

    The flow that would generate electric would be when we get the heavy rains and the spillway is flowing at max capacity 500 acres all draining into two waterways concentrates A LOT of water in a small area. But only for a few days to a week at a time. That would be unreliable at best in the rain/mud season. If there were a year round live stream or creek feeding the lake with a consistent flow of water year round. I would seriously look at hydro but as it is, it would not be worth the wire or strip of LED lights the questionable spring flow could power.
     
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  4. Tully Mars

    Tully Mars Metal weldin' monkey

    Lake Tully/Tully Lake has a nice ring to it, just say'in...
     
  5. Dunerunner

    Dunerunner Brewery Monkey Moderator

    How deep at the deepest point will it be?
     
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  6. Ura-Ki

    Ura-Ki Grampa Monkey

    Make sure the bottom of your spill way is ether heavy rip-rap, or you pour your self a sort of dentate/diverter, otherwise you run the risk of undermining all that work! When we re did ours, I had an engineer come in and do a study, though with ours, we had almost a hundred years of flow data, so it wasn't that hard to figure out. Ended up pouring 14 yards worth of dentate at the bottom to break up and drop the velocity of output! Ours can discharge up to 5000 QFS in emergency flood conditions. (don't ask the feet per min) as even the low side it is pretty strong, around 200 QFS! Also, might wanna think about a double valve system, one for draining down via the spillway, and another from the lowest part behind the dam, the idea is you can ether flow warm water out, or drain from the bottom with colder water into the down stream system, it's essential if you stock fish, or your down stream neighbors do! Also, have a plan for clean outs every now and then, don't want a bunch of stinky build up/frog water, that causes untold nightmares with your system once it really gets started!
     
  7. Gator 45/70

    Gator 45/70 Monkey+++

    Nice! Be a shame that a man with an 1/2 acre island planted picky thorny things all around the edge
    except on the entrance to an underwater pathway that goes something like 15 steps to the left on a 45 degree angel
    switch to 17 steps the right at a 30 degree angel switch at 17 steps, Walk straight for 10 steps
    Well you get the ideal.
    Fellows loaded down with gear would probably sink like a big ol rock?
     
  8. enloopious

    enloopious Rocket Surgeon

    I'm all ready to go...

    [​IMG]
     
  9. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    Hit this gem at 5' down on top of a hill while digging today. Packed it back closed with clay and it made this in 5 minutes after thinking we sealed it back up.
    DSC03005.JPG
    It is not going to stay plugged!
    DSC03006.JPG

    It is at the end of a artificial inlet/water point in the center of the lake between the North Arm and South Arm. Could not ask for a better spot for a free flowing spring. After plugging it back up it saturated the top ground and plug in a 10' radius around the center almost instantly and like said in 5 minutes time was pooling at the center. Going back to this one and digging it back out with the backhoe Thursday and just gonna let her flow...... assuming it has not already busted back out by then. Had to plug it and stop the flow so the 500 feet below it could be dozed down a couple more feet. I got 99 problems but live springs ain't one!

    Tomorrow is the last Day the Excavating Contractor will be here! Had a bit of pissing match with him this morning about scraping top soil off and out of the South Arm and halfway up the North Arm. His plan was to just leave it....... My plan was there is no way in hell half the lake bottom is going to be top soil and sub soil! So after a heated debate I am getting my giant piles of Top Soil, Sub Soil and Clay and the arms scraped down to hard virgin clay as specified in the contract. Leaving the topsoil on the bottom of a body of water of any size make a real stinking mess out of the bottom of the body of water in about a years time. Sub soil not as bad but not something you really want down there either. Hard Scraped Clay on the bottom is where it is at! All that top soil and sub soil turns into nasty silt at the base of the dam over time.
    DSC03009.JPG
    The top Soil Pile It will be about triple that size by the end of tomorrow and pushed up onto the high ground. And I really wish the birds would quit crapping on my windshield every time I drive out there!!!
    DSC03007.JPG
    I am doing the spillway. Got tired of arguing with the contractor about that one as well. He wanted to put it in the center of the dam and I insist on putting it in the South West Corner of the dam. A couple of reasons I want it on the side rather than the center. First it is cut into hard packed virgin clay there. It will be flowing down behind the dam in a ditch cut into the same hard clay at a angle away from the dam and 6' rip rap all the way down center and sides of the ditch. It will make it 100x easier for me to have future rock dumped off to the side to maintain the spillway going down. And there is zero chance of it eroding the back of the dam out. Either this fall or next summer I will pull the rip rap I put in out and do a 4" concrete pad where the rip rap is and put 4 16" diameter pipes on top of the pad and then encase them in concrete to make it level with the dam. For now sloped side with 3" rock and rip rap on the flat will do the job and can drive the tandems bringing the 10 loads of 3" rock to top the dam over it. Dam top is wide enough for my truck and a combine to meet in the middle and room to spare going by each other.

    Will give the Contractor props on the dam, he built it exactly to my specs and only used the best clay to build it...Other than the top soil to cover the back side slope. I wanted the North Side to be 2' higher than the South End so in the event of those 3 days and 15 inches of rain we get on rare occasions that if the spill way can't handle the volume of water that it over flows out the South West Corner and into my hay field and NOT over the dam. Gotta think about crap like that :)
    DSC03002.JPG

    After just short of 3 weeks I will be damn happy to have the trackhoes, Dozers and Rollers GONE and the People operating them! LOL I am kind of tired of hearing the clink clink of tracks and the scream of which ever machine has at least one roller bearing out from 7am to 6pm ;) And swear 3/4ths of the Counties population has driven down the Private Dirt road to gawk at dirt being moved. LOL they have made some amusing cluster Fs on the dirt road though. There is nowhere to turn around and there is not room to get around each other side by side. So the only way back out is to back all of the way to the corner where there is a spot to back in and turn around. The contractors guys park their trucks side by side blocking my turn around and they park the rollers and trailers in the middle of the dirt road so they can't go past my primary 40 acre corner. Kind of a dick thing to do but when the gravel road turns to a dirt road........ public access ends. I am bad man for laughing when there are a dozen of them lined up trying to figure out how the first 4 in line can get out...... the whole line has to back up and turn around one by one. It is only a half mile back up to the corner and the turn around :) Only 3 DEAD END signs on the County Road Leading down to us LOL I guess I could be nice and put a chain and gate across the road where it changes from County to Private that would only be 1/10th mile back up for them. Of course folks could keep their noses in their own business and not go where they are not welcome.......... What a strange concept that is!!!
     
  10. Tempstar

    Tempstar Monkey+++

    If I could do our small pond over, I would put a 12" skimmer out in the middle, and a 4" drain at the dam at about the 3/4 water level so we could drop the level ahead of flooding conditions. Good looking lake T5R!
     
  11. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    If this biblical deluge that started at 6am continues to pound us, the lake will be full by tonight and running over the spillway.

    Raining so hard it blurred the picture but that is the water coming down the North Arm Waterway.
    DSC03010.JPG

    I waited a bit and the rain slowed down for a couple of decent pics, this is after 1 hour of rain between 6 and 7 AM this morning.
    DSC03012.JPG

    It doesn't look like much. Being the dumb ass that I am........ I stripped down and waded out to the center. A solid 4.5 feet of water in the bowls and rising fast. We needed 10 more hours of dry to finish it up. This long line of rain that dumped 5+ inches on STL should be past us in another 2 hours. Very fortunate that the heavy rain stayed 5 mile North of us and we are only catching the edge of it. Friend 10 Miles North just told me he has gotten 4.25 inches and creek that runs through his bottom fields has turned about 200 acres into one big lake and the crops in that entire valley are lost. That valley bottom land in crops is about 7,000 acres total, One more straw on the Food Shortage Camels Back. In grand scheme of things 7,000 acres is one teeny tiny drop, but like this rain, every drop adds up to A LOT.
    DSC03011.JPG

    Good news is that as soon as it stops raining the Contractor is sending a tack hoe and dozer operator to finish it up. The rain is coming down FAST and It is running off FAST so they can skim the the surface mud off and finish up the work in the North arm. The work left to do below the dam just is not going to happen. Even if we open the valve on the drain pipe through the dam it would only drop what is pictured by 6" LOL part of the reason I waded out there was to see how far under the upright pipe was. Even if it stopped raining right now, the North Arm is going to keep flowing strong for another 5-6 hours and the pipe has zero chance of draining the water as fast as it is coming in. If we were 5 miles North of where we are it would be full by the end of the day and running over the spillway. Depending on how much more rain we get over the next 2 hours it will land at around 1/3 full by the time the run off slows to a trickle :) With 5'-6' of water over the pipe. The deep spots have been filled so now it will spread out more and get deeper much slower. The last big dirt work left is in the top 1/4 of the North Arm and I am not seeing the water getting that far up today. If it rains the rest of this week as the weather guessers are predicting........ then it will get there.

    I am just very happy that I went out yesterday afternoon and welded the 90 collar and up right pipe on. Would have preferred to test the pipe, drain and valve with the water tank in the truck bed before it was under water LOL. I can say the valve is not leaking, not a hint of water coming out of the exit end of the pipe. LOL I didn't take the wheel to crank the valve open with me when I walked out so opening and closing testing will have to wait. Did a wheel with a 3' shaft with a 1 1/8th sockets welded on to it to stick down to crank the valve open and closed. If I manage to loose the wheel, a 3/4 drive breaker bar and extension can open it up. I probably spent more money than I had to on that brass ball valves and screw. The plastic and rubber options just did not impress me though.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2022
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  12. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    Gaining Depth has slowed a lot, only because it has hit the point that it is spreading out instead of up.
    DSC03018.JPG
     
  13. Tempstar

    Tempstar Monkey+++

    At least you won't have an issue filling it up!
     
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  14. Gator 45/70

    Gator 45/70 Monkey+++

    Need a few Gators for patrol duty's?
     
  15. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    I am just glad that the rain that hit STL stayed well North of us and we only got the outer edge of that front. It ran like this for 3 hours after it stopped raining. Does not look like much but that is some fast flowing water in that stream. Going to be a real challenge for them to finish digging the channel out in the North arm and pushing the mud up out of the waterline now. Contractor foolishly started digging the channel out at the shallow end instead of starting at the low end and going up. Now there is a big deep pool of water in what was dug out above what still needs to be dug out. Can still be dug and dozed just going to be a whole lot harder than it had to be. LOL Nooooo Don't listen to the old guy that knows how to do it correctly. As it is now if I were the contractor I would bring the trash pump out tomorrow and pump the 8' deep 20' wide 40' Long trench out and then start digging again. Of Course knowing several days in advance that this rain was coming last Friday I would have worked through Sunday and finished the job up yesterday Monday, and then called Tuesday with all the rain my day off. I will give the guy credit for building a great dam, but he has been a few camels short of a caravan on the rest.

    DSC03016.JPG
     
  16. Wildbilly

    Wildbilly Monkey+++

    You're lucky! Dig a pool and it will rain every day! Dig a pond and there will be dust devils and tumble weeds in it a year from now!
     
  17. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    That is typically how my luck goes! Tumble Weeds and Dust Devils. So I am NOT going to complain! Rain stopped yesterday morning and they got right back on the Dozers and the Track Hoe and started slinging and pushing some pretty soupy stuff yesterday. Today it was much better and they started at 4am and finished their part of the Lake up at 3:40PM and collected the final 25% payment coffee can. As I handed the can over and he finished counting dead presidents, the Thunder and Lightning to the West began and 10 minutes after that it started pouring rain again. And has been a solid down pour for the last hour now.

    High chances of heavy rain here on through Monday. Not unheard of for us to get heavy rains in July through September here but not very common. At the rate we are going it might very well be filled by Mid October.
     
  18. Wildbilly

    Wildbilly Monkey+++

    Around here it has been HOT and DRY! The corn crop is gonna be lucky to make back the seed they planted! There is still hope for the cotton and soybeans. I was feeding the fish tonight and noticed that the water level was down about 3 feet since spring, that isn't unusual, and it will most likely get lower. However, that rain that you got is headed our way and the next week promises to be wetter and cooler, so don't go hogging it all!:)
     
  19. Gator 45/70

    Gator 45/70 Monkey+++

    Rains a bit everyday around here but then again the summer is our monsoon season.
     
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  20. johnbb

    johnbb Monkey+++

    Maybe I missed it so I'll ask are you planning on stocking with fish and what kind?
     
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