Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations quarry dust for sealing a leaking pond

I have a new lake that has been leaking. I was told by a contractor that they had sealed several ponds with the dust from limestone quarries. Has anyone ever heard of this? thanks , Flitchman

Limestone is not known around these parts to help seal leaks

Never heard of crushed limestone to help seal a pond/ lake

Ag lime is added by the ton to help with acidic ph issues

Do you think he meant bentonite?

In your searches you'll not find that to be the golden ticket either

That's a new one for me!

Never heard of it

It's my belief that the contractor is referring to limestone dust, not any type of crushed aggregate. Any one who's ever put a load of #53's down on the driveway knows how full of "fines" that particular grade of product is, and how well and how hard it packs after getting wet and settling. True limestone DUST acts almost like a crude cement in the fact that it will coagulate and clump together. Ask the guy who services the equipment and pumps at your local limestone quarry.

Having said that, and believing that I understand the reasoning behind such a procedure, I still have my doubts as to its effectiveness. Then again, I'm not sold on Bentonite's abilities to plug a leak either.

Southern Indiana....Limestone capital of the world....

Sparky, I have tried bentonite 3 times now with no results.

I use limestone dust to recoat my winter hay feeding pads, it makes scraping them clean in spring a breeze, about like scraping a concrete floor, and when you spread it your also adding lime to your field and not knocking yourself out with a #2 stone lol

Bedford, Ind., the World's Limestone Capital? No, Says Nebraska Town.

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1990/Bedfor...bb922ac1ad317ba

After 50 years in Lincoln, a couple weeks ago I make my first trip to Weeping Water, NE about 25 miles East to insure a farmstead. I had no idea there were limestone mines in Weeping Water, let alone being told it was the limestone capital of the world.

Sparky, I'm not disputing your claim or looking to get into a debate, I just found out this little town of Weeping Water claims the same.

Apparently I don't get out much

Beats me!

Limestone dust can work. It may not work also.

Any substance the clogs the pours of the rock/soil that has high porosity can work. Clay can do that , so can slag dust , drilling mud , bentonite and others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characterisation_of_pore_space_in_soil

The dust I am referring to is the dust created when the limestone is sawn. I was told it creates the concrete like substance that Dairyfarmer was talking about. the quarries give it away for free so the cost of trying it would be small. I was just wondering if anyone else had ever heard of it or tried it before. Thanks for all your replies. Piper

I can't imagine limestone dust would seal a pond. No way no how.

Piper, if they give it away for free, you have to haul it, correct? Any idea what it weighs per cubic yard, and how much you'd need for sealing a pond (per square yard of pond bottom)?

Make sure its not kiln dust. This product has a PH of 11 and will burn you. It is so fine it will get into your loaders front spindles and rust them solid. This kiln dust is pulled off as a waste product when making cement. Cement can not have large volumes of calcium in it or it will not harden. This is drawn off in the kiln down low in the stack. The smaller molecules move up higher up into the stack where they are drawn off. Lighter molecules will move up higher in the stack.

Here in Ontario St Marys cement will give you the product for $5 per ton and you have to hall it. It halls like water it is so fine.

This product is amazing for balancing PH of liquid manure. A little will go a very long way. Some manure has a PH of 4.5 or 5 and with a PH of 11 kiln dust will balance the PH allowing the ground to hold more manure with out it running off.

Now lets say you have some good heavy clay. If you want to change it to seal you would want the cation exchange capacity to fill with small molecules that are around neutral PH. You would want the layers of clay to lay flat with one another. In both world wars the military would hose the ground with anhydrous ammonia. This high PH would force all the large molecules out of the cation exchange allowing them to leach out. This would also break down the organic molecules that are large into much smaller ones. This would pack the ground like cement so the military could land planes any where they had enough room and flat ground.

So my conclusion is that this can and should work but your PH will be a problem. If to high you will get next to no life. It will take time on its own for the water PH to come back around but in time will. I have heard this before that hydrated lime will seal a pond from some old timers as well.

I personally do not want to experiment with my pond that is full of life. I do have leaking banks but feel in time they will seal as well as the undisturbed dirt is. My pond leaks down to this area then holds. I made a note of this level when we built this pond and know right where it is. Now if after five years and we still have this leak I may look into working these banks but I know this ground and it will tighten up.

Cheers Don.

That was my initial concern also, the effect on PH. Also the dust's eventual ability to dissolve away over time.

I would assume it is like ag lime and could help seal a pond. It may not be however. You need to know the characteristics of the lime dust to tell. It is good to think outside the box and consider options. Then check them out , ask others and choose one way or another. If no one ever tries anything different or new no progress is ever made.

Perhaps try an experiment to test your scenario:

1. Get 5-gallon bucket.
2. Drill many 1/8 holes across the bottom. Maybe some other sizes as well? Others please chime in. Depending on soil, you may need to put some screen across the bottom of the bucket to keep the clay from oozing out of drill holes.
3. Pack your soil in tight into the bucket, fill maybe 1/4 of the way or so?
4. Gently pour in water and observe leakage as to not disturb soil too much.
5. Observe leakage if any.
6. Add materials to test to see if leakage stops/slows.

Try another test with 1/4 of table salt on the surface of the soil, just from grins. That would be an ion exchange test to see if the clay packs tighter once ions are exchanged.

Through this you can test things like the PH rise, effectiveness, clay lining material leakage and so on. You could set up several buckets this way and test a bunch of different things. Just make sure to have one bucket to be your control so you can compare to untreated soils.

A guy I talked to a number of years ago about digging a pond in sand/gravel (he needed the material for a private road) said he works silt in to the sand/gravel and compacts it. Said it helps with a sand/gravel pond to seal itself.

I was reading some stuff this morning, and apparently, it is a practice.

I didn't buy it at the time, but may be something to investigate further. Maybe only to slow down the leaking. Only sources of water available are water table and pumping from a well. Virtually no runoff. EPDM liner is about 35-40K

I think there could be something to it, but I was never a fan of "mechanic in a bottle" types of solutions. I understand that there could be situations, of a less serious nature, that might benefit from such a practice, but I've never been fortunate enough to have seen it work.

Limestone dust is just that..dust. I would put it somewhere between sugar, and flour as far as granular consistency. While it is certainly not concrete, when it gets wet it basically sets up....no real structural strength, but I've still needed a hammer and chisel to knock it loose on occasion.

It's reasonable to think that the finer particles will integrate into the coarser sand (in my situation) and start to clog it up. Give it a head start is what I understood.

Kinda like clogging a filter. How many people changed filters this year?

Sand filters need to be back washed or the flow get's greatly restricted. Not impermeable, but restricted.

Something to think about.

Guys go look at this thread.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post192715

puddling works, In russia they would use what they call a gley system, which is layering straw or leaves, with mud and manure, which is essentially a more controlled system of hogs, straw and corn

Good post Eric! – sorry I missed it!
Oh Yeah – dated 19 November, 2009 – now I remember!
Week before Thanksgiving year 2009, after five years of intensive surgery, failed chemo, successful chemo, my bladder cancer was considered in remission!
Time for a big Thanksgiving and celebration!

Three weeks later, just before Christmas I was diagnosed with stage 2 life threatening rectal cancer, which I survived against odds that my docs later told me, I am pleased to be in recovery.
OK, may I be excused?

Eric and DIED have explained permeability and porosity of soils and rocks very well:
“Porosity is indirectly related to hydraulic conductivity; for two similar sandy aquifers, the one with a higher porosity will typically have a higher hydraulic conductivity (more open area for the flow of water), but there are many complications to this relationship. Clays, which typically have very low hydraulic conductivity also have very high porosities (due to the structured nature of clay minerals), which means clays can hold a large volume of water per volume of bulk material, but they do not release water very quickly.”

The current energy boom in the U.S. is the result of hydraulic fracturing of “tight” (impermeable) geologic oil and gas formations,

I guarantee permeable/porous aquafer sands can be sealed with “drilling mud” (bentonite) if enough is used and affordable – which I doubt with the current O&G demand.

Sorry to be late to the party.
George

George, I looked into Bentonite for sealing my pond when I renovated it in 2009. At that time, IIRC the Bentonite material bill (not including labor to "install" it) would have been in the $30K range when you added in shipping. That's why I have a fluctuating water level in my groundwater pond and why I'm doing my due diligence in researching a well for my pond.

Scott, next time when you are in the Shirly Mountains in Wyoming, that wet slick stuff you are skiding around on is pure bentonite - expensive long haul ....
I just said it will work - for a multi million $ hole in the ground....