What Is a Dirt Tank?

Up in Central Texas, as soon as you start to get into rolling hills, you start to see dirt tanks. I’ve seen them in other parts of Texas, too, but apparently the term is not used much outside of Texas.

You may have even seen a dirt tank without knowing it. So I thought I’d explain.

Imagine that you have a lot of rainwater running off a big hillside and flowing away. If you could catch that rainwater, you would have plenty of water for your livestock to drink—without having to drill a well or provide power for a pump.

So you get a bulldozer and scoop out a bunch of dirt from the side of the hill, and you push all that dirt up into a ridge or levee around the outside of the hollowed out place. That keeps the rainwater that runs down the hill from draining away. Pretty soon you have a very nice pond on the side of the hill.

The cows, horses, and other animals can just walk up and drink on the upper slope of the tank. So everybody’s happy.

Because the pond is just something you built into the side of the hill with dirt to hold water for livestock, we call it a dirt tank (like stock tank, which is a metal container for watering livestock).

Please note that in some places the soil is so porous that you need to add a layer of clay to the inside of the dirt tank before it rains, or the water will just seep right back into the ground.

Anyway, I just thought you ought to know about dirt tanks—in case you have a hill and a bulldozer, and want to give it a try.

Well, why not? That’s what a Texan would do.