It has been a couple of months since I posted any progress on my pond so here is an update. Being winter not much is happening but I did get the trail camera in place to monitor the pond level. Still working out the kinks with this but a time lapse movie of the pond from 12/12/09 to 2/19/10 is available at

http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll243...dlevel_0001.flv

It does appear that the pond stabilizes at a level which is roughly in the area of where we didn't do any compaction on the north side (direction the camera is facing from the time lapse above). Talking with my dirt guy he strongly beleieves that we need to remove the trees/roots on the nroth side and escavate this area out to a slope of 3:1. This will show us if there is a sand vain causing this issue and allow us to compact this area. In addition to this he wants to add bentonite to the entire pond basin as a precaution. I am having problems spending the money for bentonite ($8k - $12K+) when I don't know if it is really going to be needed. I am planning on doing a couple of bucket tests with just the soil from the pond and see if it leaks, if it does that answers the question on bentonite being needed.

If we do use bentonite will this prohibit vegatation growth in the pond? Looking to have some water lillies on the east and new north side of the pond.

I am still waiting till May to make a final decision if the north side gets removed or not, but right now I would say there is a 99% chance of that.

Any suggestions, comments, or other plans of attack are welcome.