Moon; got a question for you; IF you'd have just dug a 'regular' pond and made it look natural, even at some largeish size, and said authorities had wandered by, would they have cited you or thought the water feature was ALREADY in place? The way I see it is if that's what you created, you can do no wrong. Unless you're tapping into some sort of geo-problem, how can a 'large puddle' in the middle of the country hurt anything? If anything, it would enhance and help, so...guess what I'm saying is dig your puddle and enjoy. The mistake you made was telling a bureaucracy you were up to good 'natured' fun. Seriously, do you think your plans were going to hurt anything? Not like you're starting a fracking company...My father was raised on a farm that had two ponds. I loved them! When I bought my home and property here in PA, two decades ago, I dreamed of having my own natural pond in a ravine that had a natural spring running through it. The plan was for a @100 x 50 foot pond about 14 feet deep at the center. I was going to stock it with bass, brem (bluegills) & catfish. I cut down about 1 1/2 acres of trees to have a view to it from the house, and designed my own dam that was approved by the local conservation center. Then, they decided that the 1 foot wide runoff from the spring had 25 feet of wetland on either side, so they said I would have to relocate the wet area. I designed the pond so it would gently get more shallow on one side, and I was going to relocate the wetland to that side. They approved this plan, too. I was all ready to start work when I got about 2 inches of paperwork from the state. The state wanted all kinds of studies done before they would give final approval...like an endangered species study, a 1 mile radius run-off study, picture documentation that I wasn't flooding any historical buildings, soil studies, it went on and on. I felt overwhelmed and put my plan for a natural pond to rest. It is one of the two regrets I have in my life. Who knows, I'm 61 now; perhaps I'll go back to it one day, and only die with 1 regret, but I'm sure the regulations are even stricter now. At least I have my 425 gallon pond in my backyard!
Here's where it would have been located.
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aw, c'mon now, addy, we know you're secretly wishing you had ANOTHER pond for your bog to feed, one so you can have koi, too. Wouldn't be that hard--you have all that room behind the bog. And not to mention, we all know you don't have nearly enough shrubs, perennials, vines, and wild flowers around the pond--you're going to need more room just for those. And when your lily plantation takes off, what then? You ARE feeding the deer now with those, right? Plus, imagine how nice it would be if your bees were CLOSER to the water, for taking summer sips. You aren't considering all the effort they put into flying so far as it is...And moving dem bees would be more problematic than simply making them a watering hole a lot closer, so, best dust off the Kubota and start strip-mining again.
