If it was spring or summer I might consider it. This time of year for us it can turn wet and stay wet the whole winter. That and the fact that ground does not dry much in cold weather makes it a low probability of success that once it was pumped out the ground would dry enough to work before the next rain came along.
We had to pump our new pond once but we had warm temps heading into a more dry period and still could not get to work the very bottom (before the next rain) but was able to work all the areas we needed to.
If it was important enough or if time and money were no object it could be done. Just do not figure it worth the effort. The days I could not work on the muck I was able to work on the other end of the pond, so all in all, will have just as much deep water area (probably more actually) as if I had spent the time cleaning the remaining muck. The deep area will just be in a different part of the pond than originally intended. The surface area is only slightly bigger than the original, but the original had a lot of shallow water near the inlet ravine. I have deepened all of that area.
The only issue is not being able to get the nutrient load out. Might actually end up being a benefit as about maybe only 10-15% of the total bottom will be exposed to it where the rest is bare clay. Will not need to fertilize the new pond.
I still should be able to use the backhoe and deepen the area directly adjacent to the dam, unless the rains predicted Tuesday completely fill the pond, which would probably take a 12" rain event which is unlikely (but not unheard of for us, but usually associated with a Gulf hurricane).
I think it will be fine. If not, at least it has to be better than what was there before.
Thanks for the suggestion. I think we had to run a 3" pump about 10 or 12 hours when we built our new pond to get a few feet out of the bottom.
snrub
Last edited by snrub; 11/03/13 12:40 AM.
