Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Pond Built on Muck Ground

The prior owners built a pond in muck ground. I have spent the better half of twelve years tring to firm up the sides to keep it from erroding into the pond. Needless to say I have failed ..... BAD!. Pond is much wider and much shollower now.

I have had people out to see if the could dip it with a drag line or other means ... however the ground is just too shaky.

I see many people talk about pumps to suck out the silt. I have limited funds ... multiple thousands of dollars is not an option. Is there somewhere where I can get a good used Pump that would suck out the silt and vegitation with all the hoses and attachments.

Then Once it is pumped out to the original 14-16' deep (now about 8') how do I keep it from filling back in.

Welcome to the forum! I'm not a dirt guy but there are some good ones on here. I'm sure one of them will see this post this evening or tomorrow during the day and shed some light on your problem.

Dukk I excavated my pond out of muck, I know exactly what you mean about shaky ground and how it scares excavators away. Mine is a body of water that has been shown on local maps as far back as 1875 and it was very badly silted in. I used my dragline for a good portion of the edges but the real production came when I rented an excavator and an off road truck. The entire pond was drained previously but lacking natural fall in the land I used a pump connected to my drain pipe to keep it dry while we worked, my planned final grade elevation was/is below my drain pipe elevation. I used my D6 Cat to cut access roads down into the pond. The excavator would go in basically until it was near stuck, then the 6 wheel drive rock truck was backed down to it and loaded, as we loaded the excavator dug itself out for lack of a better description. It rained on and off as we worked and often we had to hook the D6 to the truck to pull and also push with the excavator to get it up the roads. Using this method we were able to move the largest amount of material in the shortest amount of time while stock piling it far from the pond. This was always an issue with the dragline as I could produce far more material with a large amount of water in it, with no means to haul it away and it was stock piled too close to my pond and some of it even drained back into the pond. I could have dug the entire thing this way but I'd still be digging at it.

Most of what we removed shook like jello while some material was soupier yet and would stick in a normal dump truck. The rock truck dumped at a very steep angle and nothing ever stuck in it, also it allows you to nearly dump on top of the previous pile because of it's height making the area needed for stocking that much smaller, and the 6 wheel drive helps a great deal too in muddy conditions. My surrounding soil was dry which made my roads easy to build, and when we finished in an area the excavator brought this soil out with it to rebuild the pond edge.

I hope this gives you at least some ideas, may or may not be practical where you are. I had some friends who are equipment operators and I operate for a living as well, so we had the necessary skills to pull it off. As far as the dredges or silt suckers, you still need a large area to allow the material to dry and it takes a long time to do it, digging and hauling allows a smaller waster area and is much faster.

Thanks Joeg.... My pond is not that big .... maybe 150 yds long by 40 yards wide .... shaped like a boot.

I tried to upload a picture but I don't have a web server to put it on.

Anyway...I appreciate all the info ... I have thought about emptying it and woking on it but was a little scared that everything would sink out of sight.
...

You have to do a little exploring to find out what the bottom conditions are. A large portion of my pond had a blue clay base that once we removed the 4 foot silt layer over top of it, we could drive the machinery on this layer with relative ease and very little sinking. Other areas were much less forgiving, one spot showed no signs of a bottom and we had a Cat 315 excavator stuck there after digging down and finding this all out, had to chain another excavator and the D6 to it to pull it out, it is the deepest spot in my pond at 12 feet, and next to it is a pile of material we were unable to remove due to time and obvious ground conditions. Point is, the silt layer is likely not endless in all areas of the pond, make sure you have some good cables and chains, very good friends who trade hard work for food and drink, and above all, enjoy and be safe. I had a fuel acount set up for daily fuel delivery, a good wife to make lots of food available at lunch and supper, and a keg fridge and cooler of pop and water on hand at all times.

I learned a great deal digging my pond about how to handle wet and sloppy conditions and what to expect, if I didn't have enough work to keep me busy otherwise I have thought of specializing in pond work such as this. It's dirty and difficult, but it's the work that no one else wants, and there seems to be a good bit of it out there. People ask about my dragline all the time.