PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Hutto is deep blackland farm country turning into something else. The clay that grew cotton here for a century is the same clay that will hold a pond without a liner.
Yes, and about as reliably as anywhere we work. Hutto sits on some of the deepest Blackland Prairie clay in Williamson County, and that clay is exactly what a pond basin wants.
Hutto sits on deep Blackland Prairie, the heavy dark clay that made this farm country in the first place. It is the best pond soil in Central Texas. Cut and compacted properly, it seals itself, which means no bentonite, no liner, and no expensive surprise halfway through the job.
That is worth saying plainly because it is the biggest single cost difference across this region. Twenty five miles west of here, in the limestone, a pond can need thousands of dollars of sealing work and nobody knows for certain until the machine is in the ground. Here the default assumption is that it will hold.
The same clay that seals your pond is unworkable wet. It sticks to tracks, will not compact, and tears ruts that outlast the job by years. A dam built out of greasy clay is a dam that leaks, so this is not a corner anybody should cut.
We book pond work around the weather rather than through it. If your place is saturated we will tell you to wait rather than take a deposit and make a mess of it. Late summer into autumn is usually the best window on Hutto ground.
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 phone call to the day it starts holding water.
Text or call with pictures of the spot and what you have in mind. Because the price list is published, we can give you an honest range on the first call, then put a boot on the ground to firm it up.
We walk the ground with you, find the low spot the water already runs to, and dig a test pit to see what is under the topsoil. On Hutto blackland that pit is normally good news and it is where the quote stops being a guess.
You get one page with real numbers on it. Excavation, dam construction, spillway, transport, and any flagged contingency, all in plain terms. No allowances that balloon later, no asterisks doing heavy lifting.
Mobilization is usually measured in weeks, not months. The dozer and excavator arrive on a lowboy, we stage at the site, and from that morning the build runs continuously until the pond is done.
The dig itself runs two to five days on most builds. Topsoil is saved for the banks, the core trench goes in first, and the dam is built the slow, right way, in compacted layers rather than one loose push. You will see the pond take shape daily.
We do not leave until you have walked the finished pond with us. The dam, the spillway, the bank grades, the topsoil dressing, all of it inspected against what was promised, and corrected on the spot if it falls short.
Then you wait on weather. Blackland has to be worked dry to compact, so we book around the forecast. It is the part people find frustrating and it is exactly what decides whether the dam holds water or seeps it.
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. On Hutto blackland there is normally no sealing line item at all. Access and how far the spoil has to travel are the two things most likely to move the number.
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.
We would rather explain the number before you sign than after. This is the whole anatomy of a pond quote.
The number includes the pond, whole and finished: design against the watershed, staking, topsoil stripped and banked, core trench, compacted-lift dam, cut spillway, finish-graded slopes, and dressed banks. Getting the iron to your gate and the closing walkthrough are in there too.
What moves the number on a Hutto job: how far a lowboy can get in, whether the site needs clearing first, how far the spoil has to be carried, and whether you want the dirt spread across the pasture, stockpiled, or shaped into a pad or a berm.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Pond dirt work, Belton
Elgin pond dirt work
Prairie water, standing fullFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Hutto has grown out fast toward Coupland and Thrall, and a lot of what was row crop is now five, ten and twenty acre places. A pond is usually the first improvement people make once the house is up. It waters stock, it gives the kids somewhere to fish, and it takes the water that used to sheet off the field and puts it where you want it.
The low ground where a pond wants to go is normally the brushiest part of a blackland place: mesquite, elm and hackberry down the draw, greenbriar through the fence line. We clear land for a living and build ponds with the same crew, so the brush comes out and the basin gets cut on one mobilisation and one bill.
The chart starts at six feet at centre, and six feet holds. If the pond needs to still be a pond in a dry August, go deeper. Eight feet or more keeps a cold layer at the bottom, slows evaporation and holds algae and weed back. Depth costs very little while the excavator is already sitting in the hole.
Blackland does not absorb a downpour, it sheds it. When five inches falls in an afternoon, every acre above your pond sends its water at your dam. That is why the spillway gets cut to grade and the dam gets built wide, and why a pond that looks over engineered on a dry day is the one still there after a wet decade.
A new pond looks raw. Bare banks, water the colour of the clay it came out of, and a season before it settles. Get grass on the banks before the first big rain and it clears faster and stops feeding silt back into itself.
Every pond starts filling in the day it is finished. What decides how fast is what happens upstream. Grass cover on the watershed, stock fenced off the approach and a small forebay to catch sediment will buy you decades on farm ground.
If cattle drink from it, keep them off the dam. Hoof traffic on a dam face is the commonest way a sound pond turns into a leaking one. A fenced pond with a gravity trough below it outlasts an open one by years.
You find out 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. Every owner we know who went deeper is glad they did.
When the dirt work is done you can keep the same crew on the finish work. These four add-ons turn a new basin into a finished pond.
Bare banks wash, and blackland washes in sheets. 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 whole column, holds algae back through a hot summer, and is the difference between water you swim in and water you look at.
A dock or a hardened approach turns a pond into somewhere you actually go. We can shape and compact the ground for one while the machines are still on site, which is far cheaper than bringing them back.
Fish want structure and depth before they want stocking. We leave brush piles, a drop off and a shelf while the basin is still open, so the pond is built to hold fish before you put any in it.
Pierce Land Clearing did an amazing job. Our property was covered in extremely thick cedar. They came out and cleared it for us and transformed our land. They are friendly and knowledgeable.
Rob Rindone, Google review
This company is simply the best. They are very professional, did the work they said they would do, it looks great, far beyond our expectations. They were on time and worked a full day. It is probably the best experience we have ever had with a contractor.
D’Layne Rhynsburger, Google review
From the moment I saw this forestry machine on their website, I not only believed it would get the job done but I desperately wanted one. To say it got the job done is a gross understatement. Cedar trees have no chance!
David McFadden, Google review
Learn these six and you can grade any pond quote you are handed, including ours.
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.
Saving the living top layer before the dig and dressing it back over the banks after, so grass takes the first season.
Clay you can roll into a ribbon in your hand. The soil that seals a pond, and the first thing we look for on the walk.
Texan for a working pond built to water cattle. Usually smaller, always practical, and built with the same dam discipline.
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. On Hutto blackland those numbers hold up well because there is rarely any sealing work to add. Access and clearing are the usual variables.
Almost certainly. This is deep prairie clay that compacts into its own seal as the basin is cut. Ponds here very rarely need a liner or bentonite. We dig a test pit before quoting anyway, because the ground gives a better answer than a soil survey does.
Late summer into autumn, usually. Blackland has to be worked dry to compact properly, so a wet spring can push a job by weeks. Build in the dry, then let the winter and spring rains fill it. Trying to force a build through a wet stretch is how you end up with a dam that seeps.
Often, and we do that as our main trade. The low ground a pond wants is usually the brushiest part of the property. Doing the clearing and the dig with one crew on one trip saves you a second mobilisation and a second transport charge.
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 Hutto city limit as part of a development. We will tell you which applies before anything starts.
Six feet at centre is where the price list starts. Eight feet or more is what we recommend if the pond needs to survive a dry year. On blackland the extra depth is straightforward digging, and it is far cheaper now than bringing machines back later.
Roughly 35 inches of rain a year here, concentrated in spring and autumn. Most chart sized ponds fill over one or two wet seasons. Blackland sheds water rather than soaking it up, so a decent catchment fills a pond here faster than the same catchment would on sand.
It stays on the property unless you want it gone. Spoil from the basin normally builds the dam, and what is left gets spread and shaped so it reads as landform rather than a pile. Hauling it off is possible and it costs extra, so we would rather find somewhere useful for it on the place.
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 and give you a written number with the transport already in it.