A silly question. At what point do I loose my ability to dam up a stream on my property? I mean nobody would notice a dam on a tiny stream, but if owned both banks of the Mississippi, it would obviously be illegal to dam it up.
Is there an obvious breakpoint on that?
In the US, consult your local Dept. of Natural Resources office. There are varying regulations at the Federal, State, County and Township levels. Be prepared to read up on local Riparian rights, what defines a navigable waterway, and discovering whether or not you actually own the stream, even if you own both sides of the stream.
QtM is right (as usual).
Here in Miss. you must apply to the Dept. of Environmental Quality for permission to build a dam. Two more issues: if the stream is a mapped stream with the National Flood Insurance Program then you must be able to show (with an engineering study) that your dam will not adversely impact upstream landowners (by increasing base flood elevations). Also, the Corps of Engineers requires a 404 (wetland) permit if you will be impacting any wetlands.
Got trees? A stream? Maybe you could import a couple of beavers.
Around here at least beavers are allowed to build dams at will, and the property owners have to seek special permits to disturb them, even if the resulting lake is threatening to swallow up their house. 
Sometimes, even in apparent pure sand areas, you have an impermeable layer of clay underlying it. The city pond here has a sandy bed. Thousands of years ago it used to be part of the local river flood plain, but when the sea levels rose and then stabilized, sand dunes formed, which then blew over the clay layers. The low spots filled up with water during the rainy season, et voila, seasonal ponds formed during the rainy seasons.
I’ve also read that bentonite is common for pond building, and I believe an old technique was to use pure clay and line a pit with it. But the problem is, if anything grew into the clay from outside of the pond (Like tree roots), it could easily cause a leak.
Thanks to everyone for all the informative replies, enjoyed reading them all, and all the great photos too 
Regards
This is why you should keep your levee mowed. Tree roots are a major cause of dam failure.
where i live, and i would assume in most areas too, you are limited in how big your lake can be when the lake backs water onto somebody else’s property. unless you have the adjoining property owners permission to do it.
I believe that every single lake in Texas is man-made, except for Caddo Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border, which is really just a very big swamp.
A friend of mine built his own lake for water skiing. It’s about 15 miles NE of Corsicana, about 7 or 8 miles West of Cedar Creek Lake. He bought a bulldozer and lowered the land where the lake would go, pushing the dirt to a levee to contain the water. The way he tells the story, the process of permits was a little involved, but he actually got a lot of help from the government agencies because he was creating wetlands instead of destroying. He’s now building the second ski lake on his property, and he hopes to rent out his vacation home there, or maybe sell lots on the second lake, or something like that. I think he’s mainly just playing around. Here’s a photo of the first lake: http://www.pbase.com/smbloom/image/22048406
In South Jersey, after one of the tropical storms stalled coming up the coast last year, many areas were flooded.
One area that was flooded was a series of lake fronts…various small lakes with numerous home peppered around the different lakes. After the flooding receded, some lakes dried up. Million dollar homes now sat next to mushy mud basins.
The streams and creeks that fed the lakes had their routes altered when the floods carved out new paths. Some new lakes were formed, some of the ‘bows’ in the creeks broke off and formed ponds, and some other lakes got more water…and some were gone.
I’m familiar with two different farm ponds.
Not likely to happen in this day and age but there is the joys of explosives. My friend’s Grandfather had a two acre pond blasted out sometime in the 1930’s. Still clear and has great fish. Would be better fishing, but people tresspass like you wouldn’t believe. They have the gall to park at the chained road and walk half a mile back into the woods, the sheriff’s deputies are useless, never mind almost pit worth, my hatred and hassles with tresspassers.
The other pond was done in the 1970’s with a bulldozer. Dug a hole and built up the sides with the dirt from the hole. It’s a foul overgrown mess now.
Hmmm, dynamite and bulldozers, sounds like a fun Saturday afternoon project.
Actually, IIRC, there is only one or possibly two natural lakes in all of Texas.
Quoth Qadgop the Mercotan:
Agreed. If you can see across to the other side, it isn’t a lake
The failed dam case to which emanresul refers might be the Johnstown Flood, though the circumstances were a bit different than he describes. There was no landslide that I’m aware of; the dam (due largely to faulty construction) just failed completely during a heavy rain, sending not a just splash-over, but the entire South Fork Lake, downstream to the town of Johnstown, PA, pretty nearly scouring it completely to the ground.
Nope, it was the Vaiont Dam, in Italy. Interestingly the dam it’s self didn’t fail (it still stands today), it was the reservoir banks that failed. Took me a while to find the name on Google, but I know I have the TV show on the incident on tape from a few years back. Finding that tape, however… :eek:
The easiest way to make a lake is to be trying to do something else and go "oops!’ Took no planning at all.
There’s a sizable man-made lake where I grew up in West Texas. Houses were built all around it, and nonresidents are charged admission for access to the lake. It was considered a minor place to go party on the weekend, and it’s probably nice to live out there – the houses are all at least a little upscale – but I never could get into the place. I felt like an outsider who was merely tolerated.
Okay, just curious, but do you mean “the western part of Texas”, or “the town named West that is in Texas?” Because it got pretty interesting in the town (in a good way) in 2009. (Not to mention the time it got interesting in a bad way in 2013.)
No, not West, Texas but rather West Texas. Farther west than West.
And both are far west of Due West, SC, which is south-east of me.
(I’m glad we got this cleared up.)