Folks,
Ten years ago I dug a pond in a shallow open valley, closing of the low end with the reddish clay soil creating a dam. I always planned on a well to fill it.
Not knowing any better at the time I dug about two feet too far into the first water table and the water rose about 3 feet and stayed right there. I thought this was good.
I focused on other things for ten years and just this last fall had a well drilled. ( 40 gpm 290 ft rock well) I filled the pond in a month and a half and then turned the well off. As you all know where this is going, the pond rather quickly returned to that ground water level it was at for ten years. So now I will remove as much water as I can and add 2+ feet of clay from local gravel pit compacting in lifts.
There is about two feet of very very soupy clay muck in the bottom that obviously did nothing to stop the flow of water down.
Do I have to dig all that clay muck out or could I firm it with gravel and then do my new clay lifts on top of that?
Thanks in advance and I know this gets talked about a lot.
Jim