PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Universal City is built out to its edges, so pond work here is commercial grounds, drainage detention and the acreage just beyond the city line. All of it on clay that holds water.
Usually yes. This corner of Bexar County sits on the transition out of blackland into brush country, and the clay in that ground compacts into its own seal.
The ground on this side of Bexar County still carries prairie clay, even where the town has grown over most of it. That clay is what makes a basin hold: compacted as it is cut, it seals itself, and a sealing line item is rarely needed on a Universal City job.
It also makes detention and drainage work straightforward. A basin cut to hold water for a week after a storm behaves the same way a stock tank does, and it is built with the same discipline: a proper key trench, compacted lifts, and a spillway cut to grade.
Very little of what we do here is open pasture. It is fence lines, drainage easements, commercial grounds, golf course edges and the acreage just past the city limit, all with a neighbour or a fairway on the other side of the work.
That changes the machine and the method rather than the price per day. We walk the access first, work inside whatever hours you set, and leave the ground mulched and shaped rather than rutted and stacked. On tight sites how a crew behaves matters as much as what it digs.
Most people have never had a pond or a detention basin 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.
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, work out what a machine can reach and what it has to cross, check where the runoff arrives from, and dig a test pit. On this clay the pit is usually good news and access is the real conversation.
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. Clay has to be worked dry to compact properly, so we book around the forecast rather than through it. That is what decides whether the dam holds or seeps.
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. Around Universal City sealing is rarely the issue. Access is, because most of the work here is on tight ground with neighbours, easements or a fairway on the other side of the fence.
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 Universal City job: how a lowboy gets in and what it has to cross, working hours and neighbour restrictions, whether the site needs clearing first, how far the spoil has to be hauled off a tight site, and whether the outfall needs armouring.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Pond build on Manor blackland
Stock tank holding water, Marion
A new pond taking on waterFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Most pond enquiries here are not from ranchers. They are property managers, HOAs, golf courses, and owners of the last few acres inside the city limit. What they want is water that looks intentional and behaves in a storm: a detention basin that does not become a mosquito pit, a feature pond that stays clear, an old tank cleaned back out. All of that is the same trade as a stock tank, done to a tidier finish.
We cleared six acres of overgrown brush windrows along a golf course tree line here, which is a fair picture of the work in this town. Clearing is our main trade and we build ponds with the same crew, so the growth comes out and the dirt work happens on one mobilisation with one bill.
It is tempting on a decorative pond to go wide and shallow because it looks bigger. In South Central Texas that is how you get a warm green pond by July. Eight feet or more at centre keeps a cold layer at the bottom, holds algae back and keeps the water looking like something you meant to build.
On built up ground the runoff arrives fast and all at once, because it has come off roofs, roads and car parks rather than pasture. A basin in that setting needs real freeboard, a spillway cut to grade and an outfall that does not scour. Getting that right is what separates a pond from a maintenance problem.
A new pond looks raw. Bare banks, cloudy water, a season before it settles. Get grass established before the first big rain and it clears faster and stops feeding silt back into itself.
On an amenity or course pond, clear water starts with the build rather than a chemical. Depth, a shelf, banks that do not slump and aeration do most of the work. Retrofitting clarity into a shallow warm basin is a losing game.
Runoff off roofs, roads and car parks carries grit and it all ends up in your basin. A forebay to catch sediment before the main body, and a maintenance access point you can actually get a machine to, will save real money over a decade.
South of Austin the summers run long. Six feet gets low, warm and green by August. Nine feet keeps a cold layer at the bottom and comes through it still looking like something you meant to build.
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 on a tidy site that shows immediately. We seed and mat the disturbed ground with a mix suited to South Central Texas so the first storm does not undo the shaping.
Moving water stays cleaner, and on a pond people look at every day that is most of the point. An aerator or fountain keeps oxygen through the column and holds algae back.
A dock, a path or a hardened bank turns a basin into an amenity. We shape and compact for it while the machines are still on site, which is far cheaper than bringing them back.
Fish want structure and depth before stocking. We leave a drop off and a shelf while the basin is open, so the pond is built to hold fish before you put any in.
The team with Pierce Land Clearing were great to work with. Taylor was prompt to respond, took the time to help me understand the process and options and got me scheduled for a date for service. Bobby our operator was incredibly nice.
Daniel W, Google review
Pierce Land Clearing just finished a 2 day job forestry mulching my 10 acre lot. Most of the job consisted of making dead pines and oaks, standing and fallen, disappear.
Grace Dacy, Google review
I cannot say enough good things about my experience working with Pierce Land Clearing. We have a large piece of very heavily wooded and overgrown property and their equipment was able to clear a clean, wide road and open several acres.
Jenna Kelly-Landes, 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.
We build ponds across the northeast side of the San Antonio metro and out into Guadalupe County. A few of the places we work close to Universal City:
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 this clay sealing is rarely needed. Access and site restrictions are what usually move the number here.
Usually. This corner of Bexar County still has prairie clay under it, which compacts into its own seal as the basin is cut. We dig a test pit before quoting, because the ground answers better than a map.
Yes. Detention basins, amenity ponds, golf course water and grounds work are all regular jobs here. Same day rates as anything else, and the mulch finish means there is nothing left piled up for a grounds crew to deal with after we leave.
It is most of what the job is on this side of town. A mulching head is quieter than a chipper, there is no burning and no hauling, so no truck traffic in and out all day. We work inside whatever hours you set and leave the ground shaped rather than rutted.
Inside the city limit, very likely, and detention or drainage work almost certainly goes through review. Outside it on rural Bexar County land, agricultural water storage is exempt from most regulation in Texas. We will tell you which side of that line you are on before anything starts.
Yes, and around here it is common on older detention basins and course ponds. We seal the basin, rebuild the banks, and cut a proper spillway. Usually cheaper than a new build and it fixes the reason it stopped holding in the first place.
Six feet at centre is the chart minimum. On an amenity pond this far south, eight or nine is what keeps the water looking like water in August rather than turning warm and green. It is cheap depth while the machine is already in the hole.
Around 32 inches a year here. On built up ground the catchment is roofs and paving rather than pasture, so a basin fills fast when it rains and needs the spillway sized for exactly that. We work the numbers on the walk.
Tell us roughly how big you want the water and where you are thinking of putting it. We will walk the ground, check what a machine can reach, dig a test pit, and give you a written number.