1 acre pond like many others built with dozer only. Pond initially filled but several holes appeared in bottom allowing water to drain and reappear on back side of dam. Dam was cored when built well below pond bottom. Pond was built by placing the dam at bottom of field in sort of a ravine. As we see it our next step is redoing with compaction which leads me to my question. I prepared a bucket test. I drilled between 15 and 20 3/8" holes in the bottom of the bucket with 2" of small gravel in the very bottom. I went into the very bottom of the pond where no fine material had washed into it, removed enough dirt that once compacted with a post tamper I had a layer 5" to 6" thick of compacted soil. The bucket has sat for 3 full days now and it appears I have lost around 1/2" or right under of water. What is an acceptable level of loss, not sure how much was soaked up by the dirt, how much evaporated, or how much has seeped through.Do I need to set another full bucket of water beside it to check evaporation rates? The bucket is setting in the shade under a carport. There is wetness on the bottom of bucket but it isn't dripping out. My plan is if this bucket test seems to do ok I am going to have all the fines that have washed into the dry pond skimmed off then 3 more feet of dirt dozed out and then packed back in with a sheepsfoot in layers. Any thoughts or suggestions?

The depth of the core trench requires reaching an impermeable layer (usually good clay). On one of my ponds, there was a small sand lens between two layers of good clay which was very obvious when digging the pond because it was full of water which drained into the hole to such an extent that a bottom drain was needed to finish the pond. That lens needed to be cut by the core trench. Then the trench was filled in 6-8" lifts of good clay each compacted with a sheep's foot roller. Pond is as tight as drum. Dozers are typically not sufficient to compact clay.

I think I would till some clay in and then put some on top. Pack with a sheep’s foot roller.

So after 1 full week of the bucket sitting I lost right at 2 inches of water with seepage and evaporation, not really sure what the evaporation rate would have been here in central KY the past week. Would you say this is a positive result?

So after my first test results I refilled the bucket to the rim again since I know part of the loss the first time was due to it being soaked into the dirt and no way to know evaporation loss. I did place a control bucket this time next to my test bucket so I could determine evaporation loss. After 5 full days of setting I lost 1 3/8" out of the control bucket due to evaporation. I lost 1 7/8" out of the test bucket which leaves me at a net loss of 1/2" over 5 days due to seepage. This seems like a positive in my eyes and leads me to believe my plan of digging out and compacting back in will work. Am I wrong?

No real way of knowing what is underneath the sediment.