Excavation is well under way. So far I'm at about 10 feet in depth. After going down about five feet, I hit solid blue clay. It's very dense and comes up in huge chunks, almost bigger than my backhoe can lift.
Water is running slowly in from the more porous soils near the top of the excavation. The blue clay in the bottom is holding the water.
The pond site is 10 to 15 feet below the level of the surrounding topography, so I'm still hopeful the ground water will run in (as well as surface runoff) and be held there due to gravity since water tables follow the contour of the land to some extent.
I know there is some debate about this issue on other threads. I'm no expert, so I'm just optimistic.
It's too bad I can't give you guys some blue clay. It seems like those that need it have a tough time finding it. I'm going to have mountains of it by the time I'm done.
VA
