Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Create beach on clay bottom

Heyas

I have a water table fed clay bottom pond and would like to have a sandy beach area. With the clay bottom once you step into the water you sink a good 6 inches or so . Any ideas on how to construct a beach area without using landscape fabric?

Without landscape fabric, I would build it just like a roadbed. Put down a layer of large rocks (#2's) to create a firm base then top with smaller rocks then finally sand.

You have to put something down to prevent the sand from sinking into the clay and disappearing.

Did you come up with a solution? I put down fabric last year with sand on top and it worked well but erosion has caused some problems. I’m putting down more sand as much of that beach sand I used washed away. I’m going to try concrete sand this year as it is heavier.

I have a 34 acre lake about 45’ deep.

A lake that big and deep is going to develop MUCH larger waves than the small ponds we typically discuss.

Does your water level ever drop low enough to expose your entire beach area? If so, people frequently create a large berm at the end of the beach sand area to stop the sand from having a slope to move down.

Also, your lake is so big, you might consider adding a boom (or two) at the deep end of the swimming area to take a little energy out of the waves. If it is an HOA lake, then it probably needs to also be attractive. However, if it is a private pond, then you can just chain or cable together anything you have available that floats.

An additional benefit of a boom would be a marker at the swimming areas so the small children know where the deep water starts, etc.

Waves are not just a surface water phenomenon, the entire upper water column is moving upwards as a wave crests. A shallow string of boom materials is not going to create a significant benefit. However, the bigger you go in some fashion, then perhaps you can have a cost efficient benefit.

Good luck on improving your beach!

The manufactured beaches that seem to have best success in the ADK park are those that are made on extremely gentle inclines. In fact the deeper you go, they get even less steep to almost level. Then at that deep edge of the swimming area are larger stones and gravel that dams the sand flow.

If I were to have the resources of such a large lake, I would have a beach area excavated with this in mind, then back fill with first landscape fabric, then several inches #2 crusher run, and on top at least a foot of good sand. I would avoid landscape fabric above the waterline where kids are likely to dig.

Even so, it seems sand needs to be replenished on the shore every so often. But in the ADK good washed coarse sand is plentiful.