About renovating a pond: Mine was renovated a little over a year ago. I had no real choice but to renovate or not have a pond. No permit needed to clean out, and we were able to enlarge a bit also. Because of the trees and brush in and around the pond, it could not easily be determined what the original size was, exactly. There is no other place on the land to build a pond where permitting or technical difficulties would not be a problem. As for the sludge, we pushed it out into the field adjacent to, and out of the watershed of the pond. It dried for a year, and week before last I hired a small bulldozer to come in and clean up and shape the sludge pile so it could become part of the hay field. Some of it was pushed against the back of the dam to create a gentle slope where needed, and the rest flattened. I have seeded it very heavily and the sludge should be only a memory next summer. The total cost for the clean out, building the small sediment pond above the main pond, and clean up including seeding and burying the stumps and ashes was about $3,650 for the 1/4 acre pond and 17,500 gallon sediment/minnow pond.
