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Joined: Nov 2004
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Great info about the leak. In thirty years of trying to find leaks this is the first time that has come up. It does not get that cold here very often, but next time it does that will be something to look for.
Have you tried to patch the leak or will you wait until warmer weather?
Otto

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One of the leaks I found was in the dam. I seem to have fixed it by just whacking the area of the bank which was presumably above the leak with the head of an ax a few times, but I think this area needs more work. I noticed that compared to other areas of the dam it is still quite soft.

When the dam was built, the area was so moist, even at the driest time of year it was not possible to properly compact the clay. The area of the dam with the most recent problem was very soft and even mushy for the first 6 months after the dam was built. I used a large stick and a baseball bat to poke 2 foot deep holes in the above water part of the dam and then I packed these with bentonite which seemed to firm things up quite a bit. In the first summer I repeatedly poured bentonite slurry into the cracks that formed in the clay dam as it dried out. Looking at my records I see that last winter, the second year of this ponds life, after I had done this, the pond stayed full to over flowing, but this winter it has quickly dropped down to the same level it maintained through the summer. Last summer I didn't pour bentonite into the cracks that developed. They were much smaller than the ones the year before, and harder to see because of the grass cover, but I am guessing these small cracks created a weakness that provided a water channel once things got wet again, which is why the pond is going down to the level it maintained in the summer.

Next summer I will make sure I have a couple sacks of bentonite and that I repeatedly fill any cracks that develop with bentonite slurry.

The other leak is a bit more difficult as it is in the natural soil in the side of the bank, in the uphill section of the pond. This new leak is about 1 foot from the leak I previously fed small bits of acrylic wool in hopes of plugging it like I plug my drains in my house. I am thinking this new leak is probably connecting to the same underground channel as the one I tried to fix before, though the water is entering this new leak from several inches higher than the first one I plugged, and as far as water level goes what I did to fix the problem did create a substantial improvement.

I am going to wait till we have a big rain and there is a stronger current going into it and try feeding it some more bits of wool. I am not really hopeful this will be a permanent solution, but it can't hurt. Come spring and some dry weather I may dig a 2 foot deep hole or small trench in the bank which will intercept the path the water is traveling through and then pack this with clay and bentonite, and see if this provides a more permanent fix.

I would really like to be able to retain enough of the water coming into this pond so I can send the overflow downhill to automatically water my garden.

Obviously it would have been a whole lot easier to have done it right the first time....

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Reading Joel Salatin's books on raising livestock. He throws corn around the edge of a pond that is leaking and fences in some pigs to work over the ground for a couple of months. he says because of the rooting and compacting that the pigs naturally do this method has worked for them on all of their ponds that have leaked.

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Wonder where the name for a Sheeps-foot compactor/roller came from??? grin



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littlestfish...thanks very much for this info as we have a new pond (last fall) that is not holding water this spring and was never compacted. When you say you are putting beno down the cracks are you mixing it with water or just pouring grandulars

thanks

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Originally Posted By: Rainman
Wonder where the name for a Sheeps-foot compactor/roller came from??? grin


Probably when the first sheep got run over by a street roller and they just saw his feet sticking out from the corpse. They mimicked it from then on. Duh.

smile

Last edited by ceadmin; 03/12/11 11:06 PM.
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Ceadmin
The bentonite was mixed with water to be about the consistency of Campbells cream of mushroom soup. If it is too thick it clogs the cracks at the top, and I wanted it to flow down into all the gaps.

I did this repeatedly over the summer, giving it a week or two to dry out again between pourings.

It was quite a lot of work, and I have a very small pond. I'm not sure if this would work for a bigger pond, or one that was leaking from somewhere in the depths of the dam.

It might make it easier if you poke some shallow holes in the top of the dam with a big stick when the clay is still moist in the spring, and then use these as pour holes as the cracks develop.

I guess the size and depth of the holes would depend on how big the dam was and how high above the water table it is.

People say clay settles over a couple years, so maybe my dam would have sealed up on it's own over time. But the bentonite in the cracks can't hurt, and it did seem to help me in my situation. Even in my small dam I managed to pour in almost 2, 50 pound sacks of bentonite. That is quite a bit of air or water space to get stopped up.

Good luck.

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Oh, and a progress report on the leak I was going to try stopping up with bits of wool... It seemed like too much of a bother, so I found a nice long oval shaped rock that was just the right size, and shoved that in it, and it is not leaking anymore.

I know I need to do a more serious repair, but for now, all is good.

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