Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New member seeking input on pond construction

Bill is absolutely correct about the beach area. Years ago at the public lake there was a public access next to the house. The lake is mostly a muck lake, but there are sandy areas. 1st thing in the Spring, the swimming area was covered with a few inches of soft mucky sediment. As the Spring progressed into Summer, the swimming area came back to it's normal hard sandy bottom, out to about shoulder water depth. It was about 35 feet wide. Swim to either side past that width, and the lake bottom came up and it got mucky/weedy with Chara. The people swimming and walking there kept the bottom stirred up and the mucky sediment away from that area.

That same process happened every year. The swimming area was probably around 12" deeper than the surrounding mucky area just due to the human activity there keeping the mucky sediments stirred up.

As for pond builders here in NW Indiana, the good ones are typically backed up close to a year. There are others that are OK, but they like to try and cut corners. If they are watched by someone that knows what needs to be done, they will do what they are supposed to do.

Then there are others that are just plain dirt movers and know better than anybody else. Here the pond builders are busy enough that they don't need to take on jobs that are more than a county away - there's plenty of business close by so longer travel time isn't something that they want to do. Now with the diesel prices increasing 45%, they are even more reluctant to take on jobs that are further away.

My advice would be to keep talking to different pond builders. If they say that they they don't have to pump out any water that might accumulate in the pond basin, thank them for taking the time to talk to you and call someone else.