What a bummer! and how frustrating that it seems that nearly 3 out of 4 people who have ponds built hire dirt movers who all say, Oh, yeah I can build a pond for you, and then something always seems to give grief later. I seriously am beginning to wonder how many pond builders really can do a good job... are there only enough in the US that you could count them on 2 hands?
It seems like this suggestions was thrown about before but cannot we make a list on the PB forum somewhere of pond builders who TRULY know how to do it right (and hopefully will stand by their work and come back and fix it if needs be?)
I'm hoping the pond building experts will come back with their advice, but over and over I've read here that a mini excavator, a bulldozer, or just about anything with tracks or wheels will not have enough compacting power to compact a pond. It takes a special piece of equipment and the right process. It sounds like only a handful of people who dig ponds have the right rollers to do the compacting. I find that so hard to believe that you can be in the pond building business and still think you can just use a bulldozer and track hoe or a vibrating compactor.
But perhaps if you can identify the leak and get get several compacted layers of clay you can in this case take care of it yourself.
My pond is a ground water pond but was never created to hold water like a bathtub The street water overflow goes into the pond and the goal was to have it naturally seep away out the sides or bottom. Although there was a fair amount of clay in the bottom there clearly was sand/gravel veins too. When I had it dug out I could have hauled clay in and tried to compact it but the budget didn't allow and it was out of the scope of my main priority at the time. I used soil floc with pretty good success, but I would say your plan to fix it right now with clay while you can makes good sense.
Last edited by canyoncreek; 11/14/16 10:39 PM.
