I'm almost positive our pond is on a spring but there isn't any water in it. We dug it out 2 weeks ago. Our well isn't too awful far away and I know it's on a spring, otherwise with this drought we would have ran it dry. I live in Springfield, IL...Guess I'm not sure how springs work?????

Jennifer

My experience with this area (I work in Springfield and live and hour south) is a lot of instances of 'springs' around here are nothing more than ground seeps of where the water table has an outlet. If that's the case with your situation the table is so low due to the drought that a 'spring fed' pond won't have any upflow at all.

You also want to be careful digging into an area such as you describe if it truly is just a groundwater seep - there are several posts on this site where someone actually LOST a pond on a dry year - the seep acted as a drain and the rain-filled pond went DOWN the hole, as opposed to the 'spring' adding water to it.

More experienced folks than I will also comment I'm sure.

I pulled this quote that esshup posted on one of my topics:

"What most people don't realize is that there isn't a one way valve on a spring. When water pressure in the pond is greater than the water pressure in the spring (due to low ground water levels) the water flows out of the pond thru the spring."

Just some more info for you to toss around.

I bet your well is much deeper also. Your well may be on a spring but it's more than likey in some kind of pocket of water too. I have the same type springs your are talking about here. If it rains enough you can watch water bubble right out of the hole in the ground and it will gush for 2 to 3 weeks sometimes depending on how much rain we got. I call them wet water springs. A true spring will produce water at all times kind of like where your well is. It's tricky. It's kind of like creeks. You have creeks that have water in them all the time and then you have what we call wet water creeks that are only creeks when it rains hard enough. But if it is dry enough both of them can dry up for sure!! Just like springs can too. Not sure how far down your well is but I know growing up my dad had to drill 2 wells at our house and they were both over 50 feet deep before we hit good water. So you really cant compare both of them as your well spring could be totally different than the springs around your pond.

Jennifer, I'm not a hydrology expert but:

A spring is the result of ground water and the underground water table being higher somewhere than the outlet you have. That outlet creates an opportunity for the water to escape. Since the water table is higher than the outlet(spring) it creates pressure from the weight of that entrapped water that allows the water to flow into a lower void. It's the same thing that makes a dam leak.

In my arid area of NW Texas our water table is seldom high enough to create the needed pressure from the weight of the entrapped water to create a flow into a lower area.

A water well(in most areas) is the result of drilling down into an aquifer; usually water bearing sand that is trapped above a rocky area below. Thus we poke(drill) a hole in the ground searching for a sandy area where ground water over the ages has been trapped. We sleeve(case) the hole to keep the sand from collapsing back into the hole and install a pump to bring it to the surface. The water bearing sand is an aquifer.

An artesian well flows because there is a great amount of water at a higher level that the outlet. The weight of that water pushes the water out any void that it can find.

I have one spring on my land. I found an area that was always muddy and had a dozer dig it out. It always held water back when we used to get a lot of rain. However, over time our rains have diminished and that 6 ft deep seam(ground water/aquifer) has dropped significantly due to tree roots sucking on it and lack of rain to replenish it. Now when we get rains that fill the small pond, it runs backwards into the seam and sucks the pond dry. Since the weight of the water above the seam/aquifer is heavy, the void is replenished from the hole I dug and I have a dry pond.

All of the above means that a spring can both give and take depending on the level of the underground water table.