I posted some photos of this nightmare. The very old pond we pumped out to find 3-4 feet of muck/sludge. Where the guy got stuck and we had to pull him out with a rope.
Here is the history. Customer wanted pond drained, lmb taken out as they were eating baby ducks. Have no idea what I am looking at here, as depths were disguised by crust over 40-50 years of muck and sludge from both residential runoff and an unusually large flock of semi domestic mallards. When I see what I do, I tell them they should drain it, dry it out and remove three to four feet of bottom sludge. Nope, that would cost too much, just fill it back up. Big mistake.
I try to plant water lilies, ducks eat them all within a day. Try hyacinth, eat them up in two days. Water goes bad, I mean really bad, massive algae bloom, then blue/green poison. Duck die off, they won't even enter the water. I start planting marginals, anything to try and take some of the nutrients down. Sludge eating bacteria for entire summer, bag after bag. Water finally clears, add some aeration to help, family of 5 otters visit and eat every fish I planted. Can't tough them unless they are there for a week or longer. Someone trapped them before, released them upstream. I said this disaster is both pointless and a major dead end. They said we can handle it. Good, see you later.
Now it is even worse. They asked another company to come in, and suffered major sticker shock with the bid. I have a bad feeling this is a no win I'd rather not get involved job. I can sit there and say I told you so, should have removed that muck when pond was empty. But at the same time they are asking me to comeback and really need help. I must admit, this is a tough spot. I don't expect miracles, but is there something I could try or do better without draining pond and physically removing that 5 decades of nutrients?
