Here is the pond site evaluation that was done by the Niagara County Soil & Water Conservation District.
Pond site Evaluation I told him I'd like to dig to 20 feet, I only could get to an ~18ft deep basin due to the rocks in the glacial till, it was very hard digging. Some of the rocks were bigger than my CAT 225 excavator bucket could handle.
So in winter/spring, the water should be a maximum of 16.33 ft deep.
If the water can fluctuate 50 inches, it means in the middle of a hot dry summer, the water could drop to be as low as 12.16 ft deep.
I have not decided yet if I want to line the banks with clay that I dug up from the pond. It is a very silty/sandy type clay. When it's dry it just crumbles in your hands. The banks are too steep for me to pack it down with my D6C dozer, so the best I could do would be to just spread it on the banks, and hope it does not just slide down into the pond bottom.
I was supposed to stick to a 3:1 slope, but in my excavator inexperience, some of the slopes are 2:1...
I also have to assume some of the sandy loam will erode from the banks and slide down into the pond. So I will probably lose 1 ft of depth there as well...
So all in all, I will end up with a pond that will fluctuate from 15 ft of water in winter spring, to as low as 10-11 ft in a hot summer. Unless I can line the banks with clay to hold more water in the dry months. Since I can't sheep foot the clay on the side, I'm not sure I should put anything there but topsoil & seed it ASAP to stop erosion.
Here is the pond location in relation to the soil map:
Soil Map EIA sandy loam is what makes up the banks to 7.5 ft down, then I hit clay...
