Ric,

I have the same feeling about it but was unsure of how much is too much. What I have is a drain that leads to a small creek and this drain has lots of sediment(organics) in the bottom covering the clay. I know that with the type of clay that lies beneath that growing anything would probably be an act of futility. Leaving most of the topsoil in the bottom helps out with the overall cost of this project and with my goals. What's strange is had I relied solely on the soils survey for our county(provided to me by our NRCS office) I would have questioned the underlying soils on this site for a pond. If we had not dug test holes to actually see what was underneath the 1' plus layer of topsoil we might have missed out on what appears to be a great site. I talked with the local water well guy that put down a well on one of the neighbors property a couple of months ago and he said he went through a layer of topsoil and then through a 65' wall of heavy clay. This guy is a third generation well driller from this same community and was surprised by this. This was a lesson for me to not solely depend on someone else's observations made many years ago. There is nothing like seeing it for yourself or hearing it from someone who really knows.

JTH