Building a Storm-water Pond with a Liner

We had a pond that was going to border the rear yards of many future homes. We also had sandy, porous soils and very low groundwater conditions. The St. Johns River Water Management District rules require that bond banks be built no steeper than a 3:1 slope. There was insufficient land available to provide the required slope and reach the low ground water table. Given all these conditions, we had no choice but to construct the pond with a liner. With typical over-design, the project engineer designed the liner to have 4-foot of fill. This required over excavating pond, installing the liner and covering the liner. The removal, storage and handling of that much dirt almost doubled the projected cost of the pond construction. After a lively discussion with the engineer, and some revised calculations, the cover was reduced to two feet and construction cost were inline with the budget. These photos show the process of building the pond and it’s progression into a thriving North Florida fresh-water ecosystem.