Besides seeing wet spots around the downstream side of a dam, is there any other indicators where a leak might be? Or, are there any ideas on how to find a leak? By the way, I'm not seeing any wet spots around the dam side.
I have a small (maybe 1/8 acre) pond that has been about half (4 foot) full but it empties to about 2-3 feet deep after heavy rains. It takes several weeks to drain down. Any help is greatly appreciated.
I'm located in sw Pa.
Could it be a water table pond? I have one in front of the house that is heavy yellow clay from surface all the way down. It follows the water table. It may drop 3 feet or more over several weeks in dry weather in summer. It gets a small amount of runoff and will fill quickly in a heavy rain but if it is just a heavy summer storm that fills it and the water table is low, it will drop again. OTOH, a series of lighter rains that saturate the ground and raises the water table will often cause it to raise a few inches days after the rain stops. Hard to figure out. About 300 feet away is my larger pond and it never varies over a foot no matter what.
