Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Sealing a ground water pond above the water line

I'd like to dig a small wildlife pond with 3-5 ft of water on my property in Michigan. I believe that the area I want to dig has a water table at about 3-4' down and will be sandy soils. I have a frost free hydrant next to the pond site that I can use to keep the pond full, but I'm wondering with a ground water pond, will any water I put in just equalize out/down into the water table? I'd prefer to have the water level down only about a foot or two from the current grade, but I'm not sure given the circumstances if that's possible? Any help or thoughts?

Water table pond level will always relate to the static water level. What I recommend for water table ponds is to construct it like a sandpit/gravelpit pond - dig it deeper and slope surrounding area 3:1 or 4:1 to water level, like a sandpit lake. You'll need a larger area obviously, but you don't need to worry about sealing the pond or any leak issues down the road. I recommend using mother nature to your advantage, instead of trying to reverse engineer and seal out the water table which leads to a shallow, expensive pond [which will likely leak]. Feel free to reach out anytime if you want to chat.

tj@hudlandmgmt.com

You are correct. In sandy soil, the pond water level will quickly equalize to the water table.

I like TJ's idea above. If you have lots of room you could even "bench" the pond, where you dig a large overall basin of the size you want and make the top bench the dimensions you like that are just above the water level for your wildlife pond, and the second bench is the bottom of your pond.

(However, if your soil is really sandy, you will not be able to dig very deep below the top of the water table. Wet sand is NOT cohesive, and will just spread into the excavator bucket hole you just dug in the bottom of the pond.)

Another option would be to use an artificial pond liner. They are fairly inexpensive these days, and in the smaller sizes you and some helpers can still easily manipulate the liner. You could excavate down to just below the water table and the sand would then spread to give you a nice smooth bottom. You can then use your spoils from the pond hole to anchor the edges of your liner. Using a liner and your hydrant, you could design the pond level at any elevation you desire, and easily keep your pond full.

There are many threads on pond liners in the archives, or you can search some basic articles on the internet.

Good luck on your new wildlife pond!

I have a groundwater wildlife pond on our farm that I had to deepen two years ago to get it below our "drought" water table. It got very heavy use when the two creeks in the area completely dried up.