Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Cement pond

Many of you know I've been fighting a leaking pound ever since it was constructed in 2006. I've tried benetonite and blue clay compaction to stop the leak.

It all stared when the excavater broke into a ledge and opened a seam of water into the pond hole. (Thought at the time it was a good thing.) Well, what comes in sometimes goes out. I've back filled the area with blue clay but wasn't able to compact it totaly soild. Almost 4 feet of back fill over the area, that stayed wet.

If it dires out this year I've been thinking I'd open up the ledge again and dump a load of cement or concrete in the area and hope that will solve my problem. Anyone have experience with this as a solution?

I don't have any idea about that sort of stuff, but if I'm understanding your situation correctly, might the water not just find its way around the cement and put you back where you are now, with the exception of an even bigger pain the butt to remove the next time you have to work on it?

I've been thinking about that, the water will find away into and around anything. It moves with capillary action, one molecule linked to the next. It will be pretty hard to stop that kind of seepage. I guess if I don�t get a bonding of the material to the ledge rock it will find away out.

Back to scratching my head for a better solution.

SF,

If the water is escaping horizontally, you still have a chance to stop it by adding weight to the banks.

If the water is leaking downward, that's another problem. It may require digging out and replacing porous material with clay.

If you're losing a lot of water, it's probably a leak, not just capillary action. Capillary action is a very slow process, and it takes a very wide area to lose significant water. Weight is also the antidote for capillary action.

bodad,

The ledge rock hole is at the deepest part of the dig. The excavator told me when he broke thought the ledge a coffee can size stream of water came rushing into the dig. After the first year of losing water I made a discision to back fill the area with soil from the shallow end of the pond in hopes it would stop the leak.

The follownig year the pool almost dried up completely. I then brought in the blue clay and benetonite. I mixed in the bennetonite around the whole pond and compacted it. I put the clay over the ledge area about 1-2 feet deep. I was not able to get a soild compaction in the area of the ledge. It was like walking on a foam pillow. I used a jumping jack compactor and almost lost it in the muck in that area.

Last year the water table was higher and althought I lost water it wasn't as bad. This year I'm back to the possiblity of going dry again. I'm looking for ways to correct the problem if I do end up with a dry pond again.