Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Water table question

So I had a company come dig a good sized hole .never filled I have about 3 ft of water and it's 30x60 filled with water if it fills it will be 80x120.currently it is dug 3 ft past the water table .I'm going to rent a excavator and do some myself .if I dig past the water table more there will always be that much water in it correct? Like if I dig 12 ft past the water table there will always be 10-12 feet deep in the pond?

Water tables can change due to rain and it's absorption. Drought can also change it. I recently asked Lusk how long it would take for rain water to reach the 50 ft water level of my well. He said 3 or 4 days in my sandy area. However, a lot of my neighbors wells had to be deepened in our 5 year drought.

I have a water table pond. It will vary in water depth by close to 6 feet from a dry year to a wet year. When I renovated my pond I dug it 21 feet deep from existing ground level so I would have at least 14'=15' of water depth during the driest part of the year.

Then not 3 weeks after I finished the pond, Hurricane Ike rolled through the area and 3' of sand washed into the deepest part of the pond due to 12" of rain in less than 24 hours. So now I have 12' of water depth when the pond is at it's lowest and roughly 18' water depth when it is at it's highest.

The biggest problem with a water table pond is making the banks at a gentle enough slope so that you can walk to the water level when the pond is at it's lowest point, water wise. That means aggressive weed management when the pond is at full pool, and little cover in shallow areas for fish to hide in when the pond is full because it looks ugly when water levels are down.

Thanks guys .so do you think it would be better to just get a PVC liner instead of digging into water table ? The water doesn't start for 20 ft .so ID have to slope way back to make it look like a pond

I have a small water table cattle pond. always has water but not deep. I wish it held water.
if you dug 15 feet or so it would drain into the water table?

Most people refer to ponds that are already connected to the water table as "water=table ponds". If your pond is already connected to the water table then its level will not change unless you dig into another aquifer. On our place the upper aquifer is very shallow and the one below that is 80 feet down. If you have a well close by, then you can see where the water table sits.

I'll probably end up doing a PVC liner and praying for alot of rain .just alot of digging to get that deep into the water table for me .still not sure

How much watershed do you have for the pond? Do you have any clay to use as a liner? I built a 1/4 acre wetland that holds about 3' of water when full (has not yet overflowed). After a pretty bad drought, it still has a foot of water in it. The watershed is less than 1/4 acre but it has a well packed clay liner. The wetlands that we had others build for us all went dry (they leak). We built this one last year by ourselves and took no shortcuts with the sheep's foot roller. I hope my new 1/2 acre pond does this well. The drought has broken for us now so I am looking forward to more water in our ponds and wetlands!