Detention and retention pond construction that controls stormwater and meets site requirements.
West Lake Hills built out across steep canyon lots over Austin limestone, mostly in the decades when Rollingwood, Davenport Ranch and Eanes filled in with wooded estate homes and the small commercial pads and HOA common areas that came with them. The detention ponds built to serve those sites were sized for a different rainfall pattern than what the Hill Country has been delivering lately, and many are reaching the age where the original grading and plantings need a hard look.
On ground this steep, with thin soil over limestone, a basin shows its age fast. We find forebays silted in from runoff that carries more sediment off bare cedar and oak slopes than the design ever accounted for, outlet structures choked with leaf litter and limestone fines, and embankments with volunteer trees whose roots are working into the slope. Drawdown slows, water sits longer than the plan allows, and nobody notices until the next big rain backs up into a parking lot or a neighboring lot line.
Working with Corral Bros starts with a site walk, not a sales pitch. We look at the basin the way we would if we were the ones responsible for it, then build or rebuild to the plan or alongside your property engineer where one is involved. Excavation, grading, outlet work, riprap and slope stabilization get done in a sequence that keeps the property functional while the work is underway, so you are not explaining to a board or a tenant why the lot is torn up for a month.
We're a local, family-built company that treats your West Lake Hills property like our own, tidy crews, clear pricing, and detention ponds that holds up to Travis County conditions. Available as a one-time project or part of an ongoing plan.
A detention pond temporarily holds stormwater runoff and releases it slowly, so a developed site doesn't flood downstream neighbors or overwhelm storm drains. Most Central Texas commercial sites, subdivisions and larger developments are required to have detention as part of their drainage permit.
A detention pond drains down to empty between storms and is dry most of the time, while a retention pond holds a permanent pool of water. We build and maintain both, choosing the right one based on your site's soils, drainage requirements and available space.
We schedule a free on-site visit, usually within 48 hours of your call, and walk the basin with you or your maintenance contact. On a canyon lot that means checking the inlet, the forebay, the embankment slopes and the outlet structure, since on this terrain problems often show up in a different spot than where the water actually ponds.
It depends on slope, tree cover and how much sediment the site sheds, but steep wooded lots in Eanes and Rollingwood tend to need forebay and outlet attention more often than flatter sites because limestone runoff carries fines quickly after a hard rain. A slow drawdown after a storm, standing water days later, or visible silt buildup are the signals that it is due.
Yes, we plan access and staging around the way your property actually operates. For an HOA common area or a retail center lot, that usually means sequencing excavation and grading to keep drive aisles and resident or tenant parking open as much as possible rather than closing the whole site at once.
Thin soil over Austin limestone means less cushion for equipment and more rock to work around during excavation and grading, which changes how a basin gets shaped and how outfall and spillway structures get set. Heavy, infrequent rain events also mean erosion and slope stabilization matter more here than on flatter, less wooded sites.
The main drivers are how much excavation and grading the slope requires, how much of the outlet and outfall structure needs rebuilding versus repair, and how much riprap, liner or erosion control the embankment needs. Access on a steep lot and how much vegetation has to come off a slope before we can stabilize it also factor in.
Free, no-pressure estimate from a local crew. Call (737) 404-9343 or request a quote online.
