I have searched this site pretty hard and cannot find a problem quite like mine. So here I go. I bought this property with the pond already on it from what I understand it is about 30 years old and has never held water to the top. It is about 3/4 acre and ranges from 5 to 11 ft deep depending on the amount of rain we have and what time of the year. So this year I decided to get a local excavator in and do some digging to see what we find. We went on the top of the damn and dug down on the back side. I’d say we got to about 10 ft down from the top of the damn and ran into some grey looking material which he called organic material and we soon started to see some seepage coming out and we are pretty sure it’s like this along the whole damn. The top material is pretty good clay but I’m thinking whomever built it just damned up a hill side. On top on top soil? But not sure my one neighbor swore he cored it in. The damn is about 80 yards long and I’d say about 35 yards of it always seemed moist and had some of those water plants on it. We then decided to cut the damn and drain it and come back in a few months and rebuild the damn correctly. Since he left I have been slowly shoveling out a small trench to get the pond completely drained. As I got further out in the muck I noticed I started hitting rock/sandstone only about 8 inches deep. So I feel like this maybe a problem? I still think the water was leaking thru the damn but could some of this also be seeping thru the sand stone? Here are few of my questions I cannot afford a liner for the whole pond. Has any one ever tried just putting one on the bottom and toeing it into the damn. Should I not even worry about this same stone?
Few little facts. Located in central Missouri. When pond is pretty full a garden hose can keep up with the leak. Never have seen running water just a big area always moist.
Thanks again any advice will be greatly appreciated. Tried adding pictures but it won’t let me
