Cutting a Retention Pond

The earth of the north central part of Florida is made up of limestone and sand and zillions of fish parts. That conglomeration works pretty well until we get a lot of rain. If it rains too much, the water is absorbed into the earth and washes away the sand and things begin to tumble in and around each other which often leads to sinkholes which in more extreme cases can swallow houses whole.

One way developers try to avoid such sinkholes is to provide indentations in the earth known as retention ponds - a place into which excess water can drain and thus take pressure off the sinkhole-causing forces. Most of the time these retention ponds are dry. So they need to be cut. This photo shows a young lady cutting a rather large retention pond.

Lately, however, we've had an enormous (for us) amount of rain, and this retention pond along with other retention ponds here at Trilogy have been filled with water. They are now in process of draining and things are returning to normal.