Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations I'm fillin in that holler!!!!!!!

Robinson,

Shoot Steve Young a note, maybe he can offer some advice. Does your leak have to do with the construction of the dam or did the 5" rainstorm cause an area of erosion that has affected the integrity/seal of the dam? Could you post some pictures of the problem, maybe this would draw you some responses that might help your situation.

Hey all, I'm sitting here missing church, with a sick child.

Bob, you've done 95% of what you can do for creating this wonderful site. I do intend to do a full story, when I succeed and have my dream, or sell, and no longer have the property and feel like talking about it.

Bruce, thank you for your offer to help and suggestion that I post photos. Hillbilly, thank you for your encouraging emails. Russ and Sunil, thank you also.

Russ, the dam is probably the best constructed dam in the county. It is geologist engineered with landfill quality clays, to bedrock. The NRCS was highly involved, on a county basis, and a regional manager even stopped in a time or two. They all are good people.

The problem, has to do with my post early on in this thread, the ominous spring. The lake has found it, and it is going plum around the dam. It will not go through or under the dam, due to the proper construction methods we used, high grade clays with a vibrotory roller keyed into rock. It has found a slit in the rock in my opinion, and bypassed the dam altogether. I have calculated I'm losing roughly 400 gallons per minute.

Thank you all for your kind words.

At this point, I'm gathering information, mainly looking to see at what point the lake stabilizes.

Again, I do intend to post a very long thread. The detail I intend to give will take me 8 - 10 hours to do, I think.

Thanks for your offers to help. Right now, I'm pretty sure, that thanks to this board, Bob Lusk, Steve Young, and others, I'm pretty sure I'm informed, even more than my environmentalist/geologist and the NRCS. I will share my success and if I don't succeed, hopefully I'll be able to discuss failure, one day in a detailed matter.

Thank you all fellow pondmeister friends.

On an encouraging note, I'm glad the water has been found below the dam. That tells me it, or a portion of it, running the topo or lay of the land. Around here, it could go into the oblivion. Also, on an encouraging note, we did not compact the entire floor, just an acre at the base, which held water all summer.

Robinson,
I'm guessing there wasn't enough suitable material close by to line the whole lake? Could there be enough to cover the most likely trouble spots?
If you are confident that the water you found below the dam is indeed the same water leaving your pond perhaps some dye placed at likely sources in the pond would help minimize the amount of patching you would have to do.
I remember suggestions of placing sealed plastic bags of dye in a pond at suspect areas & then puncturing the bags in an attempt to locate the leak.

I'm sure it's a heartbreak situation for you but it's also a great learning opportunity that you are to be commended for sharing here.

Wishing you some luck, sounds like you're due.

Thanks Ric. Due to cost overuns, we did not line the whole 5 acres. Probably we lined one acre in the bottom, and now I figure we need to line another acre. 2' of clay over one acre would cost $10,000 is my best guess. You are correct, I need to take my best shot or highest probably shot, which would cost me $3,000. This would be over the ditch or stream bed. The reason I say this, this was where the small spring went under, in the lake floor, just further up the stream line.


Fortunately, clay is abundant. Unfortunately, due to the project running over double the estimated cost, I'm in a pickle.

Thanks for the dye tip. I did not recall this. Also, thank you for wishing me luck. I need it.

oops

Robinson, do you feel that you'll be able to clearly see the leak once your pond adjusts to the leak level?

Sunil, great question.

There is a chance I will see it, because it is exiting at 400 gallons per minute per my calculations. It could be a "big ole hole".

I highly suspect two areas.

1. The original dry stream channel, where the spring went under due to some sort of fracture. I actually sealed from the place the small spring went under, all the way to the dam. It may be fractured futher up than what I had thought.

2. The area where I sealed another small wet weather spring.

The tactic I will be taking is this, as soon as it stabilizes, assuming it does at the 1 acre or above level it has been known to hold, I will insert markers, all the around. Then I'll look for the leak. If I'm unable to find it, I will wait for a rain to lift the water level a bit, and then start searching around the edges, especially in suspect areas.

One thing about a massive leak, it should be more detectable than a root leak or something like that.

My biggest advice to anybody out there, do not build in Karst regions, unless you have more money than sense.

There are few prettier states than TN. But those hills have limestone, shale, and sandstone, rock all of which are pond killers.

Again, you can see, it is one heck of a long story. I'm just brushing the surface as it is a really long and interesting story.

I haven't even touched on the 30' deep sinkhole, that is on the property, that lines up directly with two other sinks, in a straigh line, indicating some sort of fault line.

Yeah, I would think that a leak of that size would hopefully be visible. Then again, I have no experience in this.

Is anybody (friends, family) on-site helping you?

Sunil, my dad has offered and may be out there now. I figure, it could still be 2' under, so wait till she stabilizes, then rains to raise it over the leak, and then to look(and listen) around the edges. That will narrow the search down quite a bit.

I could get several friends to help. The most likely technique may require that I hire a swimming pool company to come and use some of their leak detection equipment.

We have both Cumerland Caverns and Mammoth Cave, in the regions. Those are two of the largest caves in North America.

I was banking on doing everything right, from the beginning, to hedge my bets on the 50/50 odds that it would leak. Guess I lost.

Somebody help me visualize what 400GPM would like like.

Would a 4" diameter hose running a solid stream of water be accurate? 6" hose?

I'm envisioning about (8) 55 Gallon drums being filled, or emptied, in a minute.

You might not have lost yet.

I would think that best case scenario is that the leak is in a less that 5' square area. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.

I would also think that your best time to be at the pond would be within an hour or so of it leveling off. Get out on the boat and visually inspect the new shoreline.

Sunil, your guess could very well be right, and it probably its. I think it's a slit in the bed of rock(limestone) leading westward to the known spring we intercepted. I don't know how big a pipe can move 400 gallons per minute, but I would suspect a 8" to 10" pipe could, to put things in perspective.

I'm not giving up. The dam is in. It is dead level, and engineered well. It is the expensive part. The cheap part will be patches, hopefully.

Great idea Sunil about an hour or so of leveling off. Why would you think this? It sounds exactly right, but I just don't know why. Maybe hearing a sucking sound?

The flow rate and pipe size are dependant on the head pressure. It also is dependant on if it is in laminar or turbulent flow conditions. In your case I would guess that it going through a limestone formation and it not being uniform in nature you are in turbulent flow conditions. I would calculate it to be somewhere between a 5 to 6 inch pipe loss that you are experiencing to get 400 gal/min. That being said it most likely is a series of cracks and fissures that total up to an equivalent of a 5 to 6 inch pipe.


To give perspective to all:

450 gal/min reduces a pond by 1 acre inch/hour


Don't you just hate it when an engineer gets involved. It comes out all numbers and no fun !!!

Eric, thank you so much, for your rough estimates. When we hit the fissure, we passed it under and through the backside with a 4" pipe. Also, it was wide enough, in it's highest area, that we put in a gravel seam encased in plastic, in the elevation higher than the 4" pipe in case of flood conditions, or in this case, filled lake conditions. This 4" pipe is running full steam. My guess is the gravel seem did it's thing, and isnow why I'm seeing the water 400' south of the dam. This gravel seam was conceived by experienced NRCS men, to pass in flood conditions, and now, with my lake half filled, it is a flood condition. The water has not been cut off from the seam.

In other words, the water has found the seam, as I suspected. Now I have to find where.

No Problem and glad to help in any way I can. I only wish I could do more or help you figure out which fissure is the guilty one/ones. I wish you the best of luck and hope you hit the lottery and don't have to fret or explain the extra costs!! No one should have to drop the dream when they are so close!!!

Godd Luck!!!!!

Eric, thanks again.

Ya'll are the best. If I had been in Texas, it would have been Otto all the way. Had I been in Indiana, Lakedoctor, who hasn't been around here lately probably because he's covered up, would have built my lake.

Again, appreciate you all, with my most sincere thanks, to all and especially our Pond Boss, Mr. Bob Lusk, in this low point of my life. Again, ya'll are the best.

For the record, I did not get to follow Steve Youngs most excellent suggestion above. If you look at the dates, he had email problems, and I had to go ahead with my local geologist and NRCS, as they were my on site experts. I kinda wished I had grouted, at the time. I think I still could, but it would be much more costly.

Robinson,

I suspect that when the water drops enough your going to see a large hole somewhere in the side of the pond basin. A 400 gpm leak ought to leave a pretty good mark. Drain the pond down and cover the hole with clay and pack with a sheepsfoot. Scrape the top dirt off the entire basin, if you haven't already, and run the sheepsfoot over the entire basin 6-8 passes until it starts to walk up out of the ground. I think in a karst area the entire basin has to be attended to, not just the low spots. Don't give up on it. I live in a karst area and I know of several large ponds (lakes) built on the same topography near to me.

Robinson, condolences from all of us. I used to scuba dive and a diver can find the hole. I would tie a rope on him for safety. That's a big suck. Of course, sooner or later it will stabilize and you will find it or maybe them. Grout seems like the way to go.

Best wishes.

PI:

If my brother-in-law scuba-dived, I'd send him to plug that hole for you. You would have to promise not to use the safety rope DD suggested.

Robinson, as your closest Pond Boss neighbor I can sympathize with you. Your problem sounds exactly like mine except on a much larger scale. My pond is full at present, but only because the flow in is so much greater than the flow out. I have springs feeding the pond on the upper end, a solid dam, but water showing up downstream of the pond. Just like you I expect that water is leaving in the old stream bed or going out one side of the pond.
I lost one inch a day all last summer and fall all the while with between 5 and 10 gallons a minute coming in. It got down to just under half full before filling back up. I wanted to drain it to see if we could locate the problem area, but mom-in-law(who funded the project) didn't want to lose any little fishes.

Keep us posted as what hopefully works for you I may end up having to de as well.

Dave, I think I've seen something like this posted here before, maybe even by you. How does this work? The water is murky.

Coach, as minor as 1" a day is, and I know it seems major, and I personally would consider it that way, but have you considered putting in some hogs? Again, 1" a day is not a huge amount, and maybe they could seal it?

It is aggrevating.

Rob, it wasn't me. Essentially a diver goes down and looks (feels) for current. A strong light might help. In cold water he would have to be tougher than me. Unless he has a dry suit. Those things are cumbersome. Something this big should be pretty easy to find. The problem is that it could be one hole or a long skinny crack. The rope would be for use if it is a sucking hole instead of a crack. I don't know what you could do about it without a lot of expense. Going down and finding a problem is one thing. Underwater repair work could get really pricey.

Robinson, I have not been able to read all the threads, and just now got the jist of this one. I really feel badly for your situation. I know this past summer you had high hopes for the new lake.
To expand on Ric's good suggestion of the dye, maybe instead of puncturing the bags, if they are placed close to the suspected leak, it would surely get broken as it is sucked down and through wherever it is going.

Best of luck

Put the dye packet in a mesh bag with several large (baseball sized rocks) and lower to the bottom where you think the leak is .Let it sit for a couple mins. Then jerk the bag up and down a few feet. The rocks will help mash and disperse the dye and the leak should pull it in and it will come out down stream. Another trick is to mix some dye and water and put into large balloons , tie 2 strings to the neck of the balloons and lower to bottom near the leak and pull the strings in opp. directions to break the neck and release the dye. You can use a sharp stick to break the balloon if the water is not to deep.

Good luck and keep us posted. We did this with a pond that had a leak through a permeable sand. Once located we made a batch of drilling mud (bentonite used in well drilling) and because it is heaver than water we poured it down a 6 in pvc pipe that went to the leak area on the pond bottom. It worked well. Don't know if it would work on a leak the size of yours.