I've been renovating my pond over the past 2 years. When I first started, I drained the pond down about 5 feet and extended the 4" outlet with a "temporary" corrugated black pipe using a heavily taped joint. I cut about 5 feet off the top riser pipe that governed the water level.
Now that I've mostly finished things, I plugged the riser and the pond filled back up using a new overflow (diagrammed). However, some water is still coming out of the temporary pipe. The water appears very clean. I'm trying to determine the source of the water and trying to figure out what, if anything, to do about it.
Iron level testing:
- out of the temporary pipe I see iron levels of at least 0.3 ppm (pictured right)
- from a well almost 150 ft away I see iron levels of 0.05 ppm (pictured left)
- from the pond itself I see iron levels of 0 ppm (not pictured, but the test strip was stark white)
Other notes:
- I'm getting a little seepage through the foot of the dam, and it looks rusty.
- The static water level in the well about 150 ft away is a about 10 feet higher than the foot of the dam.
- During construction the extended black pipe got clogged with debris. Water was flowing out a hole in the middle of new filled part of the dam at what seems like about the same rate it's coming out of the pipe now. I think it stopped when I removed the clog which turned out to be at the end of the temporary pipe.
- I've felt around the plug, and it doesn't seem like water is leaking there, but it's hard to tell
- I've thought about elevating the end of the temporary pipe to see what its static water level would be, but I haven't done this yet
Does the iron test definitely say the water is coming from a groundwater spring (or something) as opposed to pond water leaking? Or could the pond water absorb all the iron as it leaks? Thoughts?
