Thanks Dave.
i think this might be groundwater as opposed to springs, but this could just be semanitcs, if springs they have positive pressure and with groundwater it would be the water table at equilibrium....build a pond with hopes of filling above level of groundwater, and it could reverse on itself and only stay at the static groundwater level (i.e. never fill)
My guess is also groundwater. The contracter indicated that where the "springs" are may represent the high water level. After the pit filled from Fay there was about 3 weeks where the construction stopped. I watched the water level and it didn't drop during that short period.
how long will the equipment be on-site? if you get a dry run in the weather, you should be able to guage water levels and make a determination before equipment leaves as to whether or not it will stay full and only lose by evaporation
The water was pumped out to allow the construction to continue. We've had little rain since Fay. It's been sunny with low humidity and farmers are complaining about the lack of water, but the pit keeps filling from the "springs" which are about 4 feet above the bottom.
The project should be finished in 3-4 weeks, but towards the end it will be a problem getting material to fill it in because the big pond will be in the final stages.
pumping water is expensive, and as mentioned above, you need to first be able to guage whether or not its losing via groundwater pathways
I think we're limited to gambling on whether it holds water or not. All we have to go on is the 3 week period where it was very stable at about 12 ft deep. Does that give much confidence?
I've looked into solar water pumps for moving water from the big pond to this one. With no watershed and unknown ground water I just wanted to see what some insurance would cost. A solar system that would supply +/- 4800 gallons per day (corrected figure) in the summer costs around $4000 to install. I know that such a system MAY only keep up with evaporation, but this is a "free" pond so we might rationalize this extra cost.
The hole we're making could easily become a .75 acre pond, but I'm thinking of limiting the size to the 1/5 - 1/3 acre exactly because of the water supply, evaporation, etc. I would even consider making it smaller to minimize evaporation.
my suspicion though is you dug to groundwater level, go any deeper and you risk breaking into a porous layer that you can lose water to
my advice is if you want the little pond, borrow remaining clay laterally, dont dig any deeper, and you might be able to use some clay on the upper sides of the slopes if upper soils are sandy
We're not thinking of digging deeper and so far all but the top few feet are excellent clay. The contractor already told me that he would use the best clay to form all of the sides. He thinks the water level might have come up even more because the point where it stopped is at the point where the clay stops and the sandy topsoil begins, about 2 feet below grade.
Thanks again for the feedback Dave. The contractor started working with the idea of making this a pond 2 days ago. We still have the option to fill it or build it at no extra cost. That window of opportunity won't last too much longer though. I'll get a photo of the current progress today.