Originally posted by TuneTown:
Some ??'s in particular that I have are; what to do with all this earth that were removing. what is silt, is this silt,is silt good for anything, can I use it in other places on our property ie.,lawn, garden, land fill???
And, angle of attack for the sides of the pond, any do's or definately dont's??
TT,
Regarding the sides of the pond....be careful that the sides are not overly steep for several reasons. Chief of those is that you want any animals or humans to be able to get out of the pond without drowning. A common mistake that ranchers make only once is to make the sides too steep so that a cow will actually drown because it can't climb back out of the pond. Make a shelf or very gradual dropoff to deep water all around the pond.
The muck or silt or sediment or whatever you want to call it, is the accumulated decay of matter over many years combined with sediments that have been washed into the pond. It can be very difficult to remove because it is almost impossible to get it to dry out to where it can be moved with equipment. With your track loader, and depending on how much muck you have accumulated, you probably will not be able to remove it...if you try, you may very well get the loader stuck, again depending upon how much you have. It will not dry in 7 days, not even 7 weeks sometimes unless worked carefully.
There are a couple of options which do not require removal and which also take care of a couple of your other concerns. By raising the height of the dam, you can achieve a larger and deeper pond without the need to remove the muck. You were wondering what to do with all that dirt, well assuming it is good clay material, use it to raise the height of the dam and get a larger and deeper pond in the process. Don't forget about the back slope on the dam.
Another option for dealing with the muck, which I came up with out of necessity, is to push the muck into the center of the pond to form an island, that will eventually be under water. This submerged island not only is a solution to your muck problem, but also provides much appreciated structure for your fish yet to come. When building this island, contain it with a ring of clay materials by simply digging and pushing the whole thing into a ring, what will be a submerged island. I used this approach in both of my renovated ponds and it works great.
Feel free to ask any questions. Also, I'll ask EWEST, if he reads this to post the link to the summary discussion on pond renovations, from a recent Pond Boss meeting. Good luck and keep us posted please on what happens.
