Water Catch Basin / Hill Creation

What are some of your ideas on creating a hill on your land with materials removed from digging down you ponds. I am looking to dig down three areas of my land creating 10-15 foot depressions for ponds anyway and was thinking of using that to create a decent size hill and possible putting a water storage tank up on this hill to create a water pressure system for my land. My question is would it be stable enough to do this if compacted by equipment properly or would it be better off just to seed it with grasses and trees and just make the hill another catchment source to route to the ponds without the water storage on top.

I have a pond with a berm and water tanks, and I would say because water tanks are expensive and never get any cheaper, and because if something goes wrong with them everything is screwed, including your time and money that you won't want to spend redoing the water tank/tanks. So I would say water tanks on an already existing hill that is not effected by erosion. You want the tanks solid and level because you'll have at least two lines and valves coming off a tank that you don't want pressure from the ground shifting, sinking or eroding.

The soil you dig out of your pond, however, is rich stuff, and it would be great to use to plant in, or to make hugels. I like hugel trenches, and I'd put that soil in those trenches, or spread it on vegetable beds. Usually the soil that comes out of a natural pond is clay, which is why the pond exists, because it's lining the depression of the pond and keeping the water from disappearing into the ground, so it's not really great structural soil because it expands and contracts, usually a lot, which would shift a shed, a water tank, a house, etc., through the year as it expands and contracts. When houses are built on clay you need to dig below the clay and attach to bedrock, so even in that case a heavy structure is not a good idea on clay.

I like a flat raised berm on the draining side of the pond because I can make that side of the pond shallow, it's planted with willows, I can launch a boat from it, and I can mow a flat berm to have access with a truck or an ATV for maintenance. Pond maintenance can be a big deal, and the easier access you have to most edges of your pond, the less time it will take.

I have plans to put in the ponds on my land right now my land is about 10 foot elevation change on the the part out of my draw. then goes to a 30 foot changes. As for the ground it self digging down I am digging into land like this.



This is the land adjacent to me on my northern part. This pit is nearly 40 foot deep and still digging. But yeah your right I wouldn't want shifting to damage structures so I am planning more area to route water to the ponds just gathering ideas and planning for the future since that will be a major work to do.

James, what kind of soil is that? And will it hold pond water?

The soil is caliche and sandy soils. with out adding betonite or liners, or even getting pigs to seal up it doesn't hold more then a week in the areas that already hold a foot of water on the land. Some of the areas that I want to dig I plan around 15 to 16 foot while lining the deeper 5-6 foot areas and allowing the rest to recharge into the land and maybe bring back up the water table. thought area water table is around 100 foot down.