Originally Posted By: snrub
Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you have a really neat project going on.

I have no experience mixing portland cement with clay but I question its utility in that purpose.

I do have experience with rock lining on very small ponds (1/20th acre) and rock shore line protection on my main 3 acre pond. We have limestone quarries within reasonable distance so crushed limestone is relatively reasonable in price. It might work to just line the pond with a couple inches of crushed limestone. It would take a lot of truck loads but in our area we could get a ton of limestone for around the cost of an 80# bag of Portland cement. Crushed rock around the perimeter of the pond will help with wave erosion which can lead to turbid water. It is something to consider if you have a rock quarry or river gravel source close enough to make trucking and cost economical.

I cleared up the turbid water in my old pond with ag lime but it does not work for all types of clay situations. There are other ways to deal with turbid water such as alum but I will let others with that experience talk about that.

Here is a thread about rock lining the shore line.
Bank erosion and rock lining

This is a thread about my forage pond and the link takes you to the part of the thread where there are pictures of how I rock lined this very tiny 1/20th acre pond. forage pond thread where pictures of lined pond are Without doing any figuring at all and just taking a wild guess it might cost ten thousand dollars to line an acre pond with rock like I did this pond. But I am pretty sure it would take care of your clay turbidity problems. If you follow the thread on down there are some more pictures showing the pond full after a large rain where it appears a little turbid (rock and clay eroded off a portion of the bank as it is filling) then even further down on the thread shows how it clears up.

There will be others that have other experiences with turbid waters with other and probably better ideas. This is just some of what I have done. I have no experience with plastic liners so will not comment on that.



Thanks

Have thought about rocking it. We have the trucks to haul it ourselves, but no quarries locally. Closest is a 3 hour turn, so then it becomes very expensive.

Have read up on the Alum, that can be done also, but one would still have the mud issue when entering and exiting the pond.

My concern on the liner is how long they last. I don't want to have to be doing this again in 10 years time.

Sand can be bought just a few miles away, so will use sand to line the outside edges of the pond and can add as needed over time.

That is why I was thinking about the portland. It doesn't need to be all that hard, just hard enough to be firm.