To provide a little back story, last year we had a soil conservation engineer come out from Tyler to give us his $.02 on our proposed pond site, which will be about 4 acres once filled. Upon inspection, we received his blessing. Since then we have accumulated an excavator and a dump truck to accompany our little D3 dozer. With the exception of a compactor we are fairly well equipped to do some damage.
My brother and I took advantage of the 4th and spent some time at the family farm. We decided to dig a test hole to see what we will encounter in this project. We dug a 16' deep hole at the deepest location of the pond site. The strata in the test hole consisted of approximately 6" of top soil, 7' of clay, 6' of red/orange clay with veins of gray/white sand (the sand contained pockets of water), then the last 3' constisted of iron ore and clay. I am not sure how deep the iron ore layer goes as the hole was filling with water
. It appeared to me that the majority water was trapped above the iron ore/clay layer. Water was trickling in at a fair rate at that seam and the clay/sand strata was slaking off just above the iron ore line. According to the soil maps we have Lf soil which is Laneville loam frequently flooded, if that means anything to you.
We were planing to dig out deep areas up to 20-25' which would put us well into the iron ore/ clay layer and possibly into another unknown layer. Is it possible or feasible to dig a core through the water bearing strata and dam the under ground flow of water to aid in filling the pond? We are at the base of a sizeable hill and I assume the strata would follow the topography. Or, should we 86 the idea of having some deep water and keep it to 12ish feet and less? I obviously do not want to end up with a pond that fluctuates with the water table or has a big leak issue due to improper planning.
Sorry for the lengthy description. Please ask away as I know there are variables that I am leaving out that could be key.
Thanks.
