Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Question about sealing a 1.5 acre pond in PA

Hi guys I'm new to the forum and to the whole pond arena and was hoping to get some advice in here. I purchased a existing pond that was originally used for irrigation. The pond is in need of repair. I know the old metal stand pipe is rusted out causing a depression thru the middle of the dam where the soil gets washed out from the inside out. My plan is to have it dug out in the summer and put in a syphion system. I've begun lowering the pond and there is a lot of muck and sediment that has filled in. I hope to dry it out enough this summer and have a dozer push all the muck over the back side of the dam as I don't have enough free board as it is. After this is done, will I have to re-seal the pond in some way or will it just fill right back up? This pond has been around 100+ years as far as I know. The muck is about two to three feet deep.

The standard questions from this forum is "What are your goals for this pond?" Swimming, fishing, etc?

You will need to re-seal the pond, especially in light of some of the dry summers we have been having if you want your water level to stay consistent. There are things that can be done to excavate your drain pipe and replace it, but I am no expert. Read up on anti-seep collars, and make sure to choose materials that are made to last when you perform the work. Do it right and do it once, do it wrong...

Plenty of experts here to help!

If the pond really is 100 years old, you probably have more than 2-3 feet of muck.

BTW Welcome!

-Mark

I would think that if you have a good pond builder doing the work, he should be able to push the muck out of the pond without taking the seal away that is underneath the muck. Also, if you are replacing the worn out pipe, it will be gone and repacked to seal that area. A siphon in a nice way to go, just make sure that one gets installed properly when done.

Now there is the possibilty that the pond never held water good before. Or, if you want to deepen it further down that just the muck. If either of those are the case, resealing would be a good idea. If you are going to do this work soon, I would drain the water down as far as natural gravity would allow. The sooner it starts dying up, the better the dirt guy will like it.

What would be your long term goals?

Have fun and WELCOME to PONDBOSS, Jim

Hi Mike, I am about 15 miles from you. Who's doing the work? I had a similar situation. The contractor drained the pond and let the muck dry out for about a year. When the muck and sediment was cleared out it was piled in a field and spread at a later date. If your pond held water for 100 years I can't imagine you would have to do anything special to seal it.

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My intentions are most aesthetic. My deck over looks this pond and as you can see it looks pretty bad. The pond is stocked with small mouth bass.

Harry gray excavating is who I used to install my driveway and was who I was thinking about using for this job. I will install the syphion system myself.

Wow pictures really don't come out well on here! Here are th photobucket links.

http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/ad156/mikecr250/pond/312999a37ebfd18dd5b3ddf9aad07192.jpg

How's this?

Hi Rob, yeah that's kinda what I was thinking.

As you can see this summer was really bad with the alge bloom