Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Dam in Rocky Soil

I own 55 acres of reclaimed mine land in SO. IL. that is very rocky. It was mined about 40 years ago and the broken rock is mixed all through the soil. During the reclamation process two ponds were built on my property one of which holds water fine and the other leaks a bit. I bought the ground for a retirement home and a place to train my Labrador retrievers. I want to build a technical training pond, i.e. one with lots of levees, islands etc. There is a perfect drainage on the property for this and it even holds some water already now in the lowest spot. Short of hauling in clear soil there is no way to get rock-free soil to build the dam. I only want it to be deep enough for the dogs to swim in and about 2 acres in size. My question is can you build a small dam with rocky soil that will compact enough to hold water? Hauling in good clay would be prohibitively expensive. Of course I would remove the bigger rocks but there will be lots of rock baseball size and smaller that would still be in the soil.

Can you find a company that has a screener to remove the rocks from the soil that you plan on using for the dam?

Hadn't thought of that but don't know of any. Sounds expensive though. Anybody know what screening dirt would cost?

I don't know what it costs, but it can't be too expensive. There is an excavating company near me that has a big one. They most use it to make topsoil by mixing composted wood chips with excavated local dirt, which is mostly clay that has a lot of rocks of all sizes. I have seen them loading it onto a lowboy trailer a number of times, so I know they take it to sites. I'll ask around and see what the costs might be around here.

The land just to the north of me 20 miles or so is laced with a lot of limestone rocks. I see stock ponds pushed up for cattle watering with lots of rocks in the dam. I don't know if they leak, but do know there are lots of them and they hold water.

Not much help, I know. But ponds are built with rocks in the dam.

I would suggest you visit your local government NRCS guy and see if he has any suggestions. It might depend on the clay content in your soil. If you have enough clay it might compact and seal with the rocks embedded. It might take a thicker than normal dam. I'm just guessing here, but the NRCS guy should know.

Thanks for the input folks, I will check out the NRCS in my area.