Early this morning I went out and the water was really still. There is a lot of clay suspended in the water which in this situation is helpful as when there is clear water running in, it can be seen in clear clouds mixing with the clay colored water.
I noticed that directly over the springs I know of, on the surface I could see blooms of clear water. So it appears the springs are still giving not sucking. But something is draining water and lots of it. Today was sunny and there is lots of water trickling in from the backside plus the springs going full tilt, but the water level seems to be staying pretty much the same or even slowly going down.
I am now thinking there maybe a few feet between the natural clay backside of the pond that produces water and the dam, that were not sufficiently stripped down to clay subsoil and damed or sealed.
If the water continues to disappear I may try to make a tool to see where exactly all the water is going.
I am thinking once the pond over winters and settles and reaches a level just over where it seems to loose water, I could take two pieces of Plexiglas or even plywood that were about 1 foot long and 6 inches wide and attach them together along their long sides in an L shape. Then I could attach ends shaped like the bottom 1/2 of a D. This could then be pushed into the clay 5 inches below the water line creating a protected pocket of water. If I then added something like non toxic kids paint or white pastry flour it seems like I would probably be able to see signs of a current going out. That way I would have a better idea of what needs to be fixed and I wouldn't be fixing somewhere that isn't leaking. Might this work?
Before I saw my springs are still giving water to the pond and aren't removing it, and while I was wondering how I might keep what they gave, without loosing what they might remove, I wondered if it would be possible to stick a hollowed out round cedar peg into a spring and pack around it with clay. The hollow cedar peg could have a long tube attached to it. A valve could be put on the end of the tube and this on the end of the tube could be attached to a float. This would solve the problem of water pressure making a hole in the clay used to seal up the spring. When the tube on the float reached a level where the spring stopped producing water the valve could be turned off before the spring could start to suck. Would this be worth trying in some situations?
I'm glad I only have a small pond. It would be a lot harder to do troubleshooting on a big one. But what I have read here helps as I have a better idea of what clues to watch for and make note of. Thanks for the input.
