Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Sediment Removal - Dredging Advice??

I'm going to the experts here for some advice. I've posted before under a different user name and got some great help from Cecil. It's good to be back and thanks in advance to everyone for your help.

Here's the situation: Four acre pond in NE Indiana was dug about 50 years ago on an old bog/swamp. The dozer operator uncovered a mastadon skeleton when it was dug if that helps tell you what kind of bottom we're dealing with. Story goes that the ground was so unstable the dozer operator quit digging because he thought he was going to sink his dozer and never get it out. As a result, the pond was only dug to a max of eight feet at one end and about three feet at the other. Probably averages 4-5 feet in between - muck bottom of course and add 50 years of sediment to that.

Pond is aerated (inedaquately) and has always been a good fishery. It has also always been choked with weeds - particularly coontail. Grass carp were introduced and added until we experienced the other extreme - all vegetation eliminated. Planktonic algae blooms like crazy created murky water and the LMB really suffered. Long story short - rotenoned the entire pond two years ago and started over. Pond is restocked but now has a serious filamentous algae problem. There are 25 grass carp in the pond but I can't tell if they are controlling the weeds because the FA is so thick.

I know the issue is nutrient rich water creating the algae problem and lack of depth creating the weed problem. Seems like deepening and removing sediment could solve those issues. Here are my questions:

Is there a solid bottom under there somewhere? I don't know how deep swamps/bogs go. I wouldn't want to start digging only to find that there's no clay until we're 40 feet down.

What's the best option for sediment removal? The "new" hydraulic suction method, mechanical dredging, or draining and excavating?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this one.

my vote is to drain. Thats what i would do here in texas but our summers in july and august are dry enough to make it possible. you may be in a different situation. do you have a good pump? you would have to keep it pumped out everytime it rained.How big is the pond?

If you can't dig a test hole somewhere close to the pond to see what the soil is like at varying depths, maybe you could find someone that has a soil core sampler? Maybe talk to a local well driller to see if they have any suggestions.

I'd hate to dig and run into another skeleton - you might get shut down until it's removed if big brother finds out.

You could try NRCS, but their help varies greatly county to county.

My guess is that it is full of muck that is difficult to dry but you could at least try and remove as much water as possible before dredging.

If building up your levee is an option it would be faster and easier. Grab some nearby subsoil after scraping the topsoil back and layer about 3 feet on top of your levee. Put the topsoil back then problem solved.

it would be hard to say what kind of soil is under there. here when the bottom is about to fall out like the dozerman described your fixing to hit underground water of some sort. a local soil testing agency may be your best bet. they usually have a 1 ton with a drilling rig mounted on it to get samples as they drill. i,ve seen them go 25 ft deep which should do what you want. the last test hole we done with a report on the soil was about 600 bucks. bodock probably has the cheapest solution if it will work at your site

Going up isn't really an option. The pond is in a wooded area and raising the levee would flood quite a bit of timber.