PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Round Mountain sits on US 281 ranch country between Johnson City and Marble Falls. Thin soil over hard rock, good draws, and ponds that get built by finding the clay before the machine arrives.
Sometimes, and it is worth knowing before you dig rather than after. Blanco County ground is thin soil over limestone, so the first question on this end of the county is where the clay is, not how big the pond will be.
Round Mountain country is folded ground, and folded ground is honest about drainage. Every place has a draw where runoff already collects, and building the tank there means the watershed is doing the work rather than a pump. On a hill country place the site usually picks itself, and we can see it on a walk in twenty minutes.
Steep ground also gives you dam height cheaply. Where flat country needs a long low dam to hold a little water, a draw here can be closed off with a short dam and hold real depth behind it. That is why a rocky place with a good draw sometimes builds a better pond than a flat one with perfect soil.
Underneath the topsoil out here is limestone, and limestone is fractured. Water that finds a seam leaves. A pond dug on rock without a plan holds through the first wet spring and is dry by the second August, which is how most disappointing tanks around here fail.
So we dig a test pit first, every time. If there is plastic clay in the profile we use it and line the basin with what came out of your own ground. If there is not, we price bentonite or a liner into the quote where you can see it, before anything starts. Nobody should find out about sealing after the machines are on site.
Most people out here have never had a tank 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.
The first step costs nothing: photos, a rough size, your location. We come back same day with a range from the published list, and the site walk gets scheduled only if that range makes sense to you.
We walk the ground with you, find the draw the runoff already uses, and dig a test pit to see what is under the topsoil. On Round Mountain ground that pit is the whole ball game, because it tells us whether you are sealing or not.
We put the whole build on paper in machine days, dig, dam, and spillway, with rock or liner contingencies called out up front where you can see them. The number you sign is the number you pay.
Once the quote is signed we get you on the calendar, typically a few weeks out. The machines arrive together, stage near the site, and stay until the job is finished, no disappearing mid-build.
Count on two to five working days of iron time for a typical pond. Every build follows the same discipline: saved topsoil, a real core trench, a dam raised in compacted lifts, and slopes cut so they can be mowed, not just admired.
Last step: a slow lap around the pond together. You check the dam, the spillway cut, the slope finish, and the dressed topsoil against the quote. We load the machines only when you are satisfied.
Then you wait on rain. Out here a tank fills off storms rather than a steady trickle, so it can sit half empty for months and then fill in one afternoon. That is normal, and it is why the spillway gets built for the afternoon rather than for the average.
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 Round Mountain ground the two things that move the number are rock and sealing, and both get flagged from the test pit rather than discovered halfway through. If we have to cut rock or haul in bentonite it is a line on the quote before you sign.
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.
The quote has two halves: what every build includes, and the site-specific items we flag before work starts.
One price, one finished pond: siting matched to the water the land actually sheds, staking, saved topsoil, core trench, a dam packed up in lifts, a proper spillway, slopes you can mow, and banks dressed to grass. Machine transport and the walkthrough are never extras.
What moves the number on a Round Mountain job: how far a lowboy can get in, whether the site needs the cedar taken out first, whether we hit rock that has to be cut, and whether the test pit says the basin needs bentonite.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Dam work on a Burnet County build
Fifth acre pond, Liberty Hill
Bentonite sealing a pond basinFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Round Mountain is a handful of places on 281 with a lot of country around it, and most of what we build here is working water: a tank for stock, a catchment in a draw, something to hold through a dry summer on a place a long way from a water line. The published chart suits that. It is day rate work priced honestly, not a landscaping budget.
The draw where a tank wants to sit is normally the thickest cedar on the place, with persimmon and shin oak through it. Clearing is our main trade and we build ponds with the same crew, so the brush comes out and the basin gets cut on one mobilisation with one transport charge.
Blanco County averages about 33 inches and gets almost none of it in August. Six feet at centre is where the chart starts and six feet will look sorry in a third dry summer. Nine feet keeps a cool layer at the bottom, slows evaporation and holds the algae back. While the machine is in the hole that extra depth is cheap. Bringing it back later is not.
Hill country rain arrives all at once. Thin soil over rock sheds nearly all of it, so the same storm that fills your tank is the one that can cut around the dam. We armour the spillway and build freeboard for the storm nobody plans for. It is the least interesting part of the build and the part that decides whether it is still there in thirty years.
A new tank looks raw. Bare rocky banks, water the colour of the ground it came out of, and a season before it settles. Get grass on the banks before the first big storm and it clears faster and stops feeding silt straight back into itself.
Out here the spillway earns its keep two or three times a year. Walk it after a big rain and look for cutting at the edges. Ten minutes with a tractor early is a lot cheaper than rebuilding a dam later.
Hoof traffic on a dam face is the commonest way a sound tank becomes a leaking one. A fenced tank with a gravity trough below costs a little more up front and outlasts an open one by years.
You find out what a tank 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 out here who went deeper is glad they did.
Most clients add at least one of these. Planned during the build, they cost less and land better than bolting them on a year later.
Bare banks wash, and on thin hill country soil they wash fast. 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 keeps oxygen through the whole column and holds algae back through a hot summer, which matters most on a tank that gets low in August.
A hardened approach keeps stock watering without breaking the banks down, and gives you somewhere to back a trailer. We shape and compact it while the machines are still on site.
Fish want structure and depth before stocking. We leave brush piles, a drop off and a shelf while the basin is open, so the tank is built to hold fish before you put any in.
Outstanding company. Cleared out around 9 acres of mesquites and prickly pears and some broken down oak trees. The operators are very good at what they do and very courteous. I have some more projects coming up and for sure I know who to call.
ROBERT CARRASCO, Google review
I am so glad I found them to help me clear our land. We were tired of paying thousands of dollars to rent wood chippers, tractors, shredders, and chain saws, and still not being done with the project.
Charles Town, Google review
We were extremely pleased with the results on the land clearing that was done to our property. I had called around to several other companies for bids and PLC was the most reasonable, responsive, and customer oriented.
A Arevalo, Google review
Dirt crews talk in shorthand. These are the six terms that matter most on a pond build.
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. On Blanco County ground it is the thing we are hunting for in the test pit, because finding it in your own profile is the difference between sealing the pond with your own dirt and buying bentonite.
Texan for a working pond built to water cattle. Usually smaller, always practical, and built with the same dam discipline.
We build ponds across Blanco County and the hill country either side of 281. A few of the places we work near Round Mountain:
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 Blanco County ground the variables that matter are rock and sealing, and both are flagged from a test pit and written on the quote before you sign.
It depends what is under your topsoil, and a test pit answers it in an afternoon. Some places out here have good plastic clay in the profile and seal with their own dirt. Others sit straight on fractured rock and need bentonite or a liner. We would rather tell you that before the machines arrive.
It depends on the size of the basin and how much clay your own ground gives us. What we will not do is quote a pond as though it will seal itself and then hand you a change order. If sealing is likely, it goes on the quote as a priced contingency.
Usually. Tank sites out here sit in the cedar. 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 tank dams a defined watercourse or sits in a floodplain. We will tell you which applies before anything starts.
Six feet at centre is where the chart starts. Nine is what we recommend on this end of the county if the tank has to matter in a dry year. Extra depth is far cheaper while the machine is already in the hole than as a second job later.
Blanco County averages around 33 inches a year, mostly spring and autumn. Thin soil over rock sheds rain rather than absorbing it, so a decent draw fills a tank here faster than the acreage suggests. Most chart sized tanks fill over one or two wet seasons.
Often, yes. A leaking tank out here is usually a seam in the rock or a dam that was pushed up rather than compacted in lifts. We drain it, find where the water is going, and either key in a proper core trench or seal the basin. That is normally cheaper than starting over on ground you already know.
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 sealing question already answered.