PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Belton sits on the fault. East of town is blackland that holds water on its own, west of it is limestone above Belton Lake. Which side you are on decides most of the quote.
It depends which side of town your acreage is on, and around Belton that is a genuine question rather than a formality. This is where the Blackland Prairie runs into the Balcones escarpment.
East and south of Belton, out toward Holland, Rogers and Little River, you are on deep prairie clay. That clay compacts into its own seal as the basin is cut, so no liner and no bentonite, and the chart prices stand with very little added.
On that side of town a pond is about as straightforward as pond building gets. The main thing to manage is timing, because blackland has to be worked dry to compact properly and a wet spring will push the job.
West of Belton, climbing toward Belton Lake and the cut plain, the limestone comes up close to grade and the soil over it thins out fast. Rock does not seal, and a basin cut into fractured limestone can lose water as quickly as it collects it.
So we dig before we quote rather than after. If there is workable clay somewhere on the property we win it and cap the basin with it. If there is not, a liner is the honest answer, and you hear that before you have spent anything.
Most people have never had a pond built and do not know what the week looks like. Here is the whole thing, from the first call to the day it starts holding water.
It starts with photos of the site and a rough idea of size. We answer with a same-day ballpark off the published price list, and if the number works for you, we schedule the site walk. No sales funnel, just a conversation.
We walk the ground with you, find where water already collects, and dig a test pit. Around Belton that pit matters, because the ground can go from deep clay to shallow rock inside a couple of miles.
The quote reads like a plan, not a mystery: dig, dam, spillway, and any contingency for rock, each priced in machine days. If clearing is needed first, it is on the same sheet at our published day rates. What is written is what you pay.
Within a few weeks of signing, the lowboy delivers the iron. All we need from you is gate access wide enough for the machines and somewhere to drop the trailer. Everything else is on us.
Most ponds take two to five working days. The sequence never changes: strip and save the topsoil, cut the core trench, raise the dam in thin compacted lifts, shape the basin. Watch as much of it as you like from outside the swing radius.
The build ends with a walkthrough, not an invoice. Dam, spillway, slopes, and dressed banks, checked against the quote with you standing there. Anything off gets fixed before the lowboy is loaded.
Then you wait on weather. Clay has to be worked dry to compact properly, so we book around the forecast rather than through it. That is the frustrating part and it is what decides whether the dam holds.
Published, not hidden behind a form. Prices and build times are based on 6 feet of depth at center with a 4:1 bank.
| Pond Size | Starting Price at 6 ft depth, 4:1 bank | Build Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 acre | from $12,300 | 2 to 3 days |
| 1/2 acre | from $19,200 | 3 to 4 days |
| 3/4 acre | from $23,300 | 4 to 5 days |
| 1 acre | from $27,000 | 5 to 6 days |
| 1 1/4 acre | from $30,400 | 6 to 7 days |
| 1 1/2 acre | from $33,800 | 7 to 8 days |
| 1 3/4 acre | from $36,800 | 8 to 9 days |
| 2 acre | from $39,500 | 9 to 10 days |
Prices are based on six feet of depth at centre with a 4:1 bank. East of Belton a sealing line item is rarely needed. West of it, up toward the lake, the test pit decides whether the basin can be capped with clay won on your own ground or whether a liner is the honest answer. Either way you see the number first.
Size it, tell us what to do with the dirt, then draw the pond right on a photo of your land. Your estimate comes back by email, along with a preview of the finished water.
Every quote we write splits the same honest way. Here is what is inside the number and what gets flagged separately.
Every quote covers the complete pond: watershed-matched siting, staking, saved topsoil, a true core trench, a dam raised in compacted lifts, a shaped spillway, mowable slope finishes, and banks dressed with the topsoil we saved. Transport of the machines is included, as is the final walkthrough.
What moves the number on a Belton job: whether the test pit finds workable clay or limestone, whether the basin needs capping or lining, how far a lowboy can get in, whether the site needs clearing first, and how far the spoil has to travel.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Finish grading around new water
The Gatesville build: the cut
Grading the dam, LampasasFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Belton has two kinds of pond customer. Up toward the lake it is acreage homesites where the water is an amenity and the view matters. Out east it is working ground where a stock tank earns its keep. Same day rates, different brief, and the site walk is where we work out which one you are.
On the western side cedar has taken most of what is not mown, and on the eastern side the draws grow mesquite and hackberry. Either way the pond site is the brushiest part of the place. We clear land as our main trade and build ponds with the same crew, so it is one mobilisation and one bill.
On ground that changes as fast as it does across Bell County, a price over the phone is a guess. We dig first. That single hole tells us whether the basin will seal itself, whether we can win clay on site to cap it, or whether the rock means moving the pond. It costs you nothing and it makes the number real.
The Leon and the Lampasas both flood, and this county sheds water fast off clay and rock alike. A pond here needs a spillway cut to grade and a dam wide enough it cannot be overtopped. None of that shows once the water is in, and it is what decides whether the pond survives a wet decade.
A new pond looks raw. Bare banks, cloudy water and a season before it settles. Get grass established before the first big rain and it clears faster and stops feeding silt back into itself.
Every pond begins filling in the day it is finished. Grass cover on the watershed, stock fenced off the approach, and a small forebay to catch sediment ahead of the main basin will buy you decades.
If cattle drink from it, keep them off the dam. Hoof traffic on a dam face is the commonest way a sound pond becomes a leaking one. A fenced pond with a gravity trough below outlasts an open one by years.
You learn what a pond is worth in the third hot August. Six feet gets low, warm and green. Nine feet keeps a cold layer at the bottom and comes through it. Everyone we know who went deeper is glad they did.
A pond is dirt work first, but it does not have to end there. One call covers everything from grass on the dam to fish in the water.
Bare banks wash. We seed and mat the disturbed ground with a mix suited to Central Texas so the first storm does not put your dam back into the basin.
Moving water stays cleaner. An aerator or fountain keeps oxygen through the column and holds algae back through a hot Bell County summer.
A dock or a hardened approach turns a pond into somewhere you go. We shape and compact for one while the machines are still on site, which is far cheaper than bringing them back.
Fish want structure and depth before stocking. We leave brush piles, a drop off and a shelf while the basin is open, so the pond is built to hold fish before you put any in.
We had a great experience with Pierce Land Clearing. Customer service was great and the heavy equipment operator was awesome. He was easy to work with and accommodated our requests. Pierce Land Clearing had the best prices and worked with your schedule. They are the best in the area. Highly recommend!
Liz Sanchez, Google review
Preston, Dustin, and Steven just wrapped up an amazing job on an 800-acre commercial property. They were professional, dependable, hardworking, and transparent. I would highly recommend their services to anyone.
Nick Rodriguez, Google review
Pierce Land Clearing is a great family-owned and run business. They are very professional and provide timely, reasonable quotes. We have about 5.5 acres. In 2 days, they cleared most cedar, standing dead trees and mulched all at once with their large forestry machine. They also brought their rock crusher which actually pulverizes rocks. Amazing job!
Maggie Oehlke, Google review
The site walk comes with vocabulary. Here is what the crew means when they say it.
Four feet of run for every foot of drop. Gentler banks are safer and easier to mow; steeper banks get more depth from less dirt.
The dry dam height above full pool, the safety margin that keeps a big storm inside the pond.
Every acre of ground that sheds rain toward your pond. It, not the hole, decides how fast you get water.
The water level at the bottom of the spillway, the highest the pond is designed to hold day to day.
Where the dam dirt comes from. On a well designed pond it is the basin itself, so every yard dug does double duty.
One acre of water a foot deep, about 326,000 gallons. The unit that decides whether a stock pond needs a state permit.
We build ponds either side of the fault across Bell County. A few of the places we work close to Belton:
Pricing starts at $12,300 for a quarter acre at six feet with a 4:1 bank and runs to $39,500 for two acres, with an $8,000 minimum. East of town those numbers usually stand. West of town, if the test pit finds rock, sealing or a liner is a real line item and you will see it before you commit.
It depends which side of the fault you are on, which is why we dig a test pit before quoting. East of town, on blackland, almost always. West of town, on shallow limestone above the lake, sometimes only with a clay cap or a liner. You get a straight answer either way.
We stop and tell you, then price the options rather than pushing on and hoping. Sometimes there is enough clay elsewhere on the property to cap the basin. Sometimes moving the pond a hundred yards solves it. Sometimes a liner is the honest answer.
Usually some of it. Cedar takes the western ground and mesquite and hackberry take the draws in the east, and the pond site is always in the middle of it. Clearing is our main trade, so it happens on the same trip and the same bill.
On your own rural land, generally no, and agricultural water storage is exempt from most regulation in Texas. It changes if the pond dams a defined watercourse or sits inside the Belton city limit as part of a development. We will tell you what applies before anything starts.
Six feet at centre is where the chart starts and it holds water. Eight or more is the recommendation if the pond has to come through a dry summer. On the blackland side extra depth is easy digging; on the limestone side it is governed by what the rock allows, which the pit tells us.
Around 35 inches a year, mostly spring and autumn. A chart sized pond on a reasonable catchment fills over one or two wet seasons. Ground that sheds fast, which is most of this county, fills a pond quicker than sandy country would.
Yes, and around Belton it is often the better job. Widening the basin, rebuilding the dam with a proper key trench and cutting a spillway that suits the bigger catchment usually costs less than starting again.
Tell us roughly how big you want the water and where you are thinking of putting it. We will walk the ground, dig a test pit to find out which side of the seam you are really on, and give you a written number.