About 4 years ago, I purchased my Grandfathers old homestead. He had a few ponds on the property, one for watering livestock, and one for ducks, geese etc that he hatched and raised....hundreds of them. I filled in the live stock pond and decided to expand the water fowl pond. It was a round pond, fed with run off approximately 8' deep at the dam, and about 1/2 acre surface area.
My Grandfather passed in 1997, the property owner basically let everything go before I was able to get it back into the family (My father and aunt grew up there and the property had been in the family since the early 40's). Due to the lack of maintenance, everything, and I mean everything had to come down. House, barns, outbuildings, etc. The tree's were so thick on the property and around the ponds that they were barely visible.
I purchased a Case Construction King backhoe and a John Deere 650 dozer. My other grandfather was a retired operator, and although I am a novice, I have operated a wide variety of equipment. I wanted to expand the pond. I cleared the property and began the expansion. The soil for the pond is all timber clay, hardly any dirt at all. One of my early mistakes was utilizing the existing dam, I should have started over, but hindsight is 20/20. We hauled in another 350 tons of good clay to raise the dam to the level needed. The base of the dam is approximately 80' wide and about 20' at the top. The deep end of the new pond would be at the dam, and it would be 20' to 22'. When it was all done, the pond filled and it was awesome! Fish were stocked and everything seemed good to go.
Fast forward 6 weeks, I have a road that goes behind the pond down to the river. I was on my side by side about 50' away from the dam and it sunk to the frame. The pond was leaking and I fought it for two years with no luck of it sealing. We had a hard winter that year, the pond drained to a depth of around 10' and all of the fish winter killed. Last summer we drained it and found gray shale about 1' below the clay floor of the pond in the deep end. Although we didn't find anywhere obvious where the leak was, it was decided that we would do another 3/4 acre expansion, use the clay out of the expansion to pack on the floor and the water side of the dam.
This is the summer I have to get this done. I have a few questions in regards to my plan. 1st, the pond will be dry, it is currently fed by run off, and I am hoping for a dry summer so that there isn't a lot of pumping involved.
I've thought that maybe I should go along the face of the dam and possibly dig a new key, then add to the face of the dam. I'm not sure if there is any value in doing this.
Before I allow the pond to begin filling, would it be beneficial to look into bentonite, or some other form of sealing agent?
Lastly, on the shallow, intake side of the pond, I have an old well that sits about 15' from the shore. My father and I have discussed from the beginning of the build of digging the well out and attempting to have the spring help feed the pond. I'm not sure if this will work, but I know that it is a healthy spring that feeds the well. I also know that there are vast amount of veins that run through the property. The well, as well as the pond, lye in a valley and the ground is always soft and wet. The well depth is 28' and has around 15' to 18' of water in it. The problems I see is that the pond depth on that end is only 5'. If I had a 15' or 18' hole on that end of the pond, would there be an issue where the pond would drain through the spring? I figure that the hydraulic pressure wouldn't be as great at the shallow end, the valley from the intake to the over flow in the dam has about a 10' decline in elevation towards the dam.
Any help you guys can provide would be great. I don't want to go through this again. It has been disappointing to say the least. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to attempt to provide you guys with as much information as possible! Thanks in advance for your opinions!
