My pond was renovated in August 2015. The bulldozer and backhoe came the same day I finished pumping and draining it to the top of the muck. The dozer started on the high side opposite the dam and worked toward the dam. The backhoe was set up on the lowest side of the dam and dug a pit there for the dozer to push muck into. The backhoe would toss the muck from the pit to the back side of the dam. The soil below the muck was much drier and the dozer could get traction by digging through the muck. The dozer finally worked all the way to the dam and the muck was out and somewhat spread. This plus the clearing of trees and brush took about two days on my less than 1/4 acre pond. The third day was spent in shaping and making the pond to be a full 1/4 acre. It had about 5 feet of muck in the deepest part and little at the edges.
The muck took about 11 months to dry enough so it could be spread further and shaped out to one side of the dam, which made the dam there much less steep on the back side. It is now heavily grassed and you would never know it was once pond muck. Fresh pond muck being pushed out has the look and consistency of wet concrete (that never sets up).
