PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Temple sits on Bell County blackland between the Leon and the Little River. Deep prairie clay is the best pond ground in Central Texas and you are standing on it.
Yes, and about as dependably as anywhere we build. The eastern half of Bell County is deep Blackland Prairie, and that clay is exactly what a pond basin wants under it.
The ground east of Temple is deep prairie clay, the soil that made this farm country and still grows grain out toward Rosebud and Holland. Cut and compacted as the basin is dug and the dam raised, that clay forms its own seal. No liner, no bentonite, no expensive surprise.
It is worth saying plainly because it is the biggest cost difference in this region. Thirty miles west, on the Lampasas cut plain, a pond can need thousands in sealing and nobody knows for certain until a machine is in the hole. Here the working assumption is that your ground will hold, confirmed in the test pit.
The same clay that seals your pond is unworkable when it is saturated. It sticks to tracks, refuses to compact, and tears ruts that outlast the job. A dam built out of greasy clay is a dam that seeps, so this is not a corner worth cutting.
We book pond work around the weather rather than through it. If your place is soaked we will tell you to wait rather than take a deposit and make a mess. Late summer into autumn is usually the best window on Bell County 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 call to the day it starts holding water.
Send photos of the spot, a rough size, and your town. You get a ballpark from the published list the same day, and if it sounds right we set a time to walk the property. No pressure loop, no form-and-wait.
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 Temple blackland that pit is normally good news and it is where the quote stops being a guess.
A real number in machine days: what the dig costs, what the dam costs, what happens if we hit rock, and what the clearing adds if the site is brushed up. The price on paper is the price, and any rock contingency is spelled out instead of buried.
A lowboy shows up with the dozer and excavator, usually within a few weeks of a signed quote. We need a gate the iron fits through and a spot for the trailer, and we handle the rest.
Two to five working days for most ponds. Topsoil gets stripped and saved, the core trench gets cut, the dam goes up in compacted lifts, and the basin takes shape a bench at a time. You are welcome on site every day of it, at a safe distance from the swing radius.
Before the machines load, we walk the pond with you: dam, spillway, slopes, and the topsoil dressed back over the banks. If it does not match what was quoted, that is the moment we make it right.
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 Temple blackland there is normally no sealing line item at all, which is the single biggest saving against building out west in the limestone. Access and how far the spoil travels are the usual variables.
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.
No surprise line items. Here is how the number breaks down on every quote we write.
Siting and design against your watershed, staking, topsoil stripped and saved, the core trench, the dam built in compacted lifts, the spillway cut and shaped, slopes finished to mow, and topsoil dressed back over the banks. Machine transport is in the quote, and so is the walkthrough before we leave.
What moves the number on a Temple 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
Basin shaping, Gatesville
The Gatesville build: dam workFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Bell County is still farm and ranch country, and most of the ponds we build around Temple are working water. Stock tanks that mean cattle are not walking to a creek, catchment that stops a pasture sheeting water into the road, a place to draw from in a dry year. The chart prices suit that: honest day rate work rather than a landscaping budget.
The low ground where a pond wants to sit is normally the brushiest part of a blackland place: mesquite, elm and hackberry down the draw and greenbriar through the fence line. We clear land as our main trade 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 has to matter in a dry August, go deeper. Eight or more keeps a cold layer at the bottom, slows evaporation and holds algae and weed back. On this clay the extra depth is straightforward digging and it costs very little while the machine is already there.
Blackland does not soak up a downpour, it sheds it. When five inches falls in an afternoon every acre above your pond sends its water at the dam. That is why the spillway is cut to grade and the dam is built wide, and why a pond that looks over engineered on a dry day is the one still standing 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.
The build does not have to stop when the water shows up. These come with the same one-crew, one-call approach as the pond itself.
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 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.
This is the second time using this company. Always quick responses and follow through! Their quality of work is the best in the industry.
Sean Chandler, Google review
Huge fan of this family owned business, great people! If I need my land cleared will definitely call them!!
Destiny Laster, Google review
These guys are as good as it gets. Professional, hard working, honest group. We ran into some issues that were completely out of anyone's control. Taylor promised to complete the job as soon as it is possible to do so in a safe manner. Looking forward to working with these guys again.
Maria Hayes, Google review
Six terms you will hear on the site walk, and what they actually mean for your water.
The key cut through the dam footprint, backfilled with compacted clay, that stops water tracking under the dam instead of sitting behind it. On deep Bell County blackland it is the most important part of the whole build.
The dam built up in thin layers, each packed tight by the machine before the next goes on. The opposite of a pushed up pile.
The armored low route storm water takes around the dam instead of over it. The difference between a rain event and a rebuild.
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.
We build ponds across Bell County and the blackland either side of it. A few of the places we work close to Temple:
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 Temple blackland those numbers hold up well because there is rarely sealing to add. Access and any clearing are the usual variables.
Almost always. This is deep prairie clay that compacts into its own seal as the basin is cut. Ponds here very rarely need a liner. We still dig a test pit before quoting, 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, so a wet spring can push a job by weeks. Build in the dry and let the winter and spring rains fill it. Forcing a build through a wet stretch is how you end up with a dam that seeps.
Often, and that is our main trade. Pond sites sit in the low ground where brush is thickest. Doing the clearing and the dig with one crew on one trip saves 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 Temple city limit as part of a development. We will tell you which applies before anything starts.
Six feet at centre is where the chart starts. Eight or more is what we recommend if the pond needs to survive a dry year looking like a pond. On this clay the extra depth is easy digging and far cheaper now than bringing machines back later.
Around 35 inches a year, 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 sandy ground.
Yes, and around Temple there are a lot worth saving. Rebuilding the dam with a proper key trench and cutting a spillway sized for the catchment usually costs less than a new build and leaves you a pond that behaves like new.
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.