Excavation
Site dig-outs, soft-spot removal, pond and basin digging and cleanup work with our own excavator.
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Pollard's Dozer Service handles drainage and culvert work in Buna, TX and the land around it. Water stands in a yard or a pasture when the ground has no fall to carry the runoff away. We look at where your water wants to go, then cut a path that will carry it there. Ditches, swales and driveway culverts all move water off your ground and into a place that can take it.
The work here is dirt and grade, done with an excavator and a dozer. It is the same equipment we run for soft spot removal and basin digging and for land grading and leveling. A drainage job on your place usually starts with cutting real fall into a ditch or a swale. From there we set a culvert, clean out an old ditch, or regrade a low spot that keeps holding water.
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Rainfall is the first reason, and Southeast Texas gets plenty of it. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Port Arthur put the yearly total near 62 inches. August is the wettest month and February is the driest, so the heavy months land in summer. In September 2019, Tropical Storm Imelda dropped 44.29 inches near Fannett and flooded homes in Hardin, Orange and Jasper counties.
The ground under that rain does not move it along, either. The Evadale soil series, with a type location in Jasper County, is poorly drained and holds water all cool season. Beaumont clay runs 42 to 60 percent clay and drains very slowly on flat coastal plain ground. We see the same standing water in Vidor, Mauriceville, Orange, Silsbee and Lumberton.
A driveway culvert is sized to the ditch it sits in and the ground draining to it. We set the pipe on the flow line of the ditch so water does not pond at either end. Bedding goes under it and cover goes over the top, and the fall has to match the ditch. On a state highway, TxDOT wants sloped safety ends on the pipe rather than vertical headwalls. The pipe at the road ditch is also the first piece of a new gravel drive.
Who approves the culvert depends on the road your drive ties into. For a state highway or an FM road, TxDOT issues an access driveway permit and approves the size. On a county road the county decides, and Orange and Hardin counties both permit and install the pipe. Jasper County runs its roads by precinct, so call your precinct commissioner before you buy pipe. Ground inside a mapped flood zone carries extra rules, which our guide to land clearing permits in Texas walks through.
A ditch only works if it has fall, and plenty of old ditches here have lost theirs. Silt, leaves and grass fill them in until water backs up and stands in the yard. We cut the ditch back to a real grade so it drains to the road ditch or a low place. On flat rural ground an open ditch usually beats buried pipe, since you can see it and clean it.
A swale is a shallow, grassed dip that carries water around a house pad or across a pasture. Where a low spot holds water, we bring in fill dirt and shape it so it drains. Washed out drives and cut banks get repaired once the water has somewhere else to go. Pond overflow and outfall lines get routed the same way, and a retention basin is pond construction work.
The best time to look at a water problem is right after a rain. Standing water shows us exactly where it collects and where it quits moving. Before any digging, we file the 811 locate, which Texas law requires at least two business days ahead. Then the excavator and the dozer do the work, cutting the ditch and shaping the dirt to drain.
Our work is outside dirt and grade, done with an excavator and a dozer. Foundation and interior drains, septic, sewer and storm sewer tie ins go to other trades. Concrete flatwork does too, and we tell you up front when a job needs one of those. If water is standing where you need it gone, request a free on-site estimate and we will come look.
From the first walk of the property to the last pass of the blade, here is exactly how it goes.
We come see the property — the trees, the brush, the ground under it, and how wet it runs. What you want cleared, what's worth keeping, and what the job really takes. No blind quotes over the phone.
You get a free estimate with a real number and a real timeline. It covers what's included — clearing, dirt, shaping, debris — and it holds unless the scope changes.
The dozer, excavator or mulcher shows up when we said and does the job the way we quoted it. Anything unexpected in the ground, you hear about it immediately, not on the invoice.
We walk the finished ground with you before we call it done. Clean lines, shaped banks, a pad you can build on or a pasture you can mow. Done means you say it's done.
Common questions about drainage across Buna & all of Texas. Don't see yours? Give us a call — we're happy to help.
Site dig-outs, soft-spot removal, pond and basin digging and cleanup work with our own excavator.
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House pads, barn pads, site prep and fill: dirt hauled, placed, shaped and packed so what you build on it stays put.
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Stock ponds, fishing ponds and retention ponds — dug, shaped and banked right, with the spoil dirt put to work on your land.
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Rough, rutted or washed-out ground graded smooth and sloped to drain — pastures, yards, building sites and everything between.
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New gravel driveways cut and crowned, rutted and muddy drives rebuilt, and ranch roads, lanes and shop pads graveled so they hold up in the wet.
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Wooded lots, overgrown acreage and future homesites cleared with our own dozer — trees and brush out, clean workable dirt left behind.
View DetailsFamily owned and operated since 1990, with three generations on the same iron. The name on the machine is the family doing the work — and answering the phone.
Dozer, excavator and tracked mulcher under one roof. Clearing, dirt work, grading and the pond get done as one job with one estimate — not three contractors pointing at each other.
We walk the property, tell you what the ground actually needs — and what it does not — and hand you a real number. No phone guesses, no surprise extras.
Sandy uplands, gumbo clay bottoms, wet winters and brush that never quits — this is the only dirt we have ever worked, and we build for what it does.
Texas has no statewide land clearing permit, but burning debris, wetlands, floodplains, and city limits all carry rules. What actually applies to your land.
Read more →Can you dig a pond on your own land in Texas? What the stock pond exemption actually covers, why soil decides everything, and how a real pond gets built.
Read more →Land to clear, a pad to build, brush that's won too many summers, or a pond you've been thinking about for years? Call or send the form and we'll walk the property with you and hand you a free estimate — straight answers from the family that's worked this dirt since 1990.
Tell us about your land — we’ll get right back to you.