Sediment basins designed to capture increased amounts of sediment from earth disturbance sites will improve environmental quality. Twelve simulated runoff events, each equivalent to a two-year, 24 h Type II storm on a denuded 0.4 ha construction site, were introduced to a 200 m3 sediment basin. Each storm had the same prescribed 100 m3 inflow hydrograph, which contained 454 kg of Hagerstown A horizon soil injected in proportion to the inflow rate. A delay time was introduced between the end of the simulated inflow runoff hydrograph and the beginning of the dewatering outflow hydrograph from the sediment basin. Four delay time treatments were tested, each with three replications. Each treatment was designed to completely dewater the basin through a skimmer in 24 h and included no delay time (control) and 0 h, 12 h, or 168 h delay times. The sediment lost from each of the treatments was significantly different (p < 0.05) and averaged 14.7 kg, which yielded a sediment retention efficiency of 90%, when the no-delay skimmer treatment was used and only particles <45 .m were considered. The losses from the 0 h, 12 h, and 168 h delay treatments were 13.3, 9.4, and 3.1 kg, respectively, and had sediment retention efficiencies of 92%, 94%, and 98%, respectively, when considering particles <45 .m. Infiltration into the floor of the basin contributed greatly to the dewatering event. Using experimental infiltration results from ten basins and an infiltration-based routing model, we show that many sediment basins can be dewatered in less than seven days using only infiltration as the dewatering process, resulting in zero sediment discharge from these basins.