Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help dredging my existing pod

I have a 1/2 acre pond that has become largely silted up due to years of runoff. I am going to have it dredged. We have done some research and determined that it was orginally about 6 or 7 feet deep, so we thing we will be taking about 1500 cubic yards of sediment out of the pond. I have found a guy with a 60' reach arm and a 60" bucket to do the job. Two questions: Do I need to drain the pond significantly or can he just start pulling sediment out (very few fish remain at this time)? Is the silt/sediment any good once it drys out. I have heard nothing will grow in it and I have heard the opposite. Thanks!

You can start dredging anytime but I would drain it ASAP also,Shouldnt take too long with a good size trash pump. I think you will get a better job having it drawn down.As far as the sediment once it has dried out (takes a long time)it will grow most anything that can tolerate a mid to high ph enviroment.You may want to have a general soil test done to see exactly what you have.Good Luck

Dhalt,

Welcome to Pond Boss! Here are some of my thoughts. Advantages to draining the pond:

Trucking the material is much easier, and cost effective, if it is dry material as opposed to a wet pudding. Wet material is much heavier(why pay to haul water). This equates to increased trucking costs due to the fact that the loads will be smaller. Smaller loads result in an increased trip count.

Depending on where you plan to dump the spoils, dry material will hold together better than a slurry. During one of my recent pond renovations, I was dumping the material near a town road. I certainly didn't want any material to find its way onto the road.

If your plans include shaping the pond bottom, with humps and channels etc, it would be much easier to accomplish this if you were not dealing with a wet mud hole. Like Ted mentioned it shouldn't take long to drain the pond with a good size trash pump.

In response to your second question, last year I dredged a small feeder stream using my neighbors backhoe. The material that was removed, partially decomposed leaves and such, was spread along the banks. I wish I had taken a picture of the grass that sprouted in that material. Thick and tall.