Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations quarry dust for sealing a leaking pond

Make sure its not kiln dust. This product has a PH of 11 and will burn you. It is so fine it will get into your loaders front spindles and rust them solid. This kiln dust is pulled off as a waste product when making cement. Cement can not have large volumes of calcium in it or it will not harden. This is drawn off in the kiln down low in the stack. The smaller molecules move up higher up into the stack where they are drawn off. Lighter molecules will move up higher in the stack.

Here in Ontario St Marys cement will give you the product for $5 per ton and you have to hall it. It halls like water it is so fine.

This product is amazing for balancing PH of liquid manure. A little will go a very long way. Some manure has a PH of 4.5 or 5 and with a PH of 11 kiln dust will balance the PH allowing the ground to hold more manure with out it running off.

Now lets say you have some good heavy clay. If you want to change it to seal you would want the cation exchange capacity to fill with small molecules that are around neutral PH. You would want the layers of clay to lay flat with one another. In both world wars the military would hose the ground with anhydrous ammonia. This high PH would force all the large molecules out of the cation exchange allowing them to leach out. This would also break down the organic molecules that are large into much smaller ones. This would pack the ground like cement so the military could land planes any where they had enough room and flat ground.

So my conclusion is that this can and should work but your PH will be a problem. If to high you will get next to no life. It will take time on its own for the water PH to come back around but in time will. I have heard this before that hydrated lime will seal a pond from some old timers as well.

I personally do not want to experiment with my pond that is full of life. I do have leaking banks but feel in time they will seal as well as the undisturbed dirt is. My pond leaks down to this area then holds. I made a note of this level when we built this pond and know right where it is. Now if after five years and we still have this leak I may look into working these banks but I know this ground and it will tighten up.

Cheers Don.