The pond is located 30 miles southeast of St Louis. The two contractors that bid the repair have experience in building ponds, and repairing leaky ones. The pond has evidently leaked since construction according to the neighbor below, he helped install the French drain. The water that would inundate his property is channeled down the property line to a ditch. Both contractors were concerned about how much material would have to be moved, and then returned, and time involved in finding the leak(s). Plus the cost of bentonite needed, and that possibly the entire core is bad.
This spring the water level rose to pool, to the bottom of the overflow pipe. Within two weeks it was down a foot or so. I waited a couple weeks after recent rain as to not include runoff in the measurement. Flow from the drain was quantified timing filling of two buckets of known volume as it entered the ditch, I can send a video if interested. Calculation of water volume was derived from 13 quart buckets taking 4 minutes to fill consistently over an extended time period. This extrapolates to .8125 gallons per minute, 48.75 gallons per hour, and 1170 gallons per day. Is this “normal permeation “?
I grew up in north Missouri on a farm. We ran between a couple hundred to nearly 800 head cow/calf. Water for the cattle was provided by multiple ponds. Even the ponds damaged by muskrats didn’t leak as much as this pond.
Currently it’s down between 4&5 feet, and that’s after around 4” of rain in the past week. I have not remeasured the volume loss, but suspect it will vary with the level of the pond, hydrostatic pressure.
The previous owner had two 7#-9# largemouth bass mounts and a video from Purina advertising their largemouth bass food. A neighbor worked for Purine, and this pond was used as a test for the chow. Part of the sales marketing was the video showing multiple “big” fish surfacing to eat.
Thank you for your time and expertise. If I can provide any additional information please let me know. Thanks again!
I am based in St Louis, and am unaware of ANY qualified pond builder within 200 miles of St Louis. I would have to do a site visit to offer you more insight on repairs, but I could build a completely new pond for less than your quotes already gotten. Chances are high that you have plenty of clay, would not need bentonite, and even if completely drained and starting over, you could have many bass in excess of 4 pounds within 2 years...I fear you have been getting some really bad information....BTW, what county are you in? I sent you a private message.