We have an old pond on the farm, behind our house. I would estimate it's 50x100 feet and 7-8 feet deep if it ever filled. The farm has been in our family since 1928, and when we acquired it in 2020 we had someone clean out the pond, and rebuild up the "dam" where it was washed out. I know that he re-cored the part of the dam that had washed out, but the other half I have no idea how it was made, and was left as is. From what I can see on Aerial Photos, the last time this pond really held water was the 1950's.
After the initial work was done on the pond, it tried filling over the winter (This pond gets very little runoff) but anytime it starts to fill it leaks back out. It seemed to me that it's leaked since day one, even when there was a small amount of water in it, but this also could have been a result of saturation. It never got more than 3 to 4 feet deep, except for after a big rain, when it probably leaked down a foot within a couple of days.
We had the guy come back and he cleaned it out again, dug it out deeper, and then lined it with a foot of clay. (Only tracked in with a D6 LGP for compaction, and he suggested a plate tamper would help provide some compaction, so we did that also.) It's leaked worse since this, and has probably only made it up to half the fill height it used to reach after a big rain.
We've had a really dry summer and it's only about a foot deep at this point, so I'm looking for options to try and make progress. We've discussed a liner or Bentonite, but I'm looking for any suggestions of alternatives to try first. I've considered running my disc harrow through it and then trying to get better compaction with my tractor (approx. 9000lbs). If we added Bentonite, my idea was to add it between the disc harrow and compaction steps, but I'm not sure on an application rate. Could this be done on just the lower section of the pond to see if any improvements are made, or should it all be done at once? I've also considered letting the cattle in it when we get them up to our farm next spring.
Does anybody have any low cost ideas that are worth a try before spending a bunch more money on it? I can have the pond completely dry within a couple days with a garden hose. I've seen the stuff that you spread over the water and it supposedly suspends itself and gets sucked down into the leaks. Is this worth a try if the pond ever fills back up again, or a waste of 500 dollars?
I've attached the only picture I have of recently, where you can see our "hole in the ground" pond. Thank you for any ideas!
