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Hello everyone, I am new to Pond Boss and am joining due to the wealth of information that seems to be on here. I am in desperate need to learn how to manage my pond as its not something I have ever done before, but is something I really want to get into.

I just recently purchased an older property with a pond. In total we have about 5.5 acres of land and about 2 of that is the "pond". Now I say "pond" because over half of that 2 acres is mostly cattails and marsh/wet land with no visible (or very little) water. There is actually about .5 of an acre that is considered the pond itself which is very heavily silted. The home was built in 1936, while I don't know the exact age of the pond, I am thinking it's 50+ years old. The previous owners bought the place in the early 1980s and the pond was well into its years by that point.

As it stands today, the deepest point of my .5 acre pond is slightly over 2 feet. The depth ranges between 1-2 feet throughout and the closer you get the shore its drop down to several inches only. If one steps from shore you sink into the muck well over a foot so it can be assumed the further out you go, the deeper that muck is. The previous owners had a survey done and in 1999 the pond's deepest point was 5.5 feet deep so there is an obvious silt problem.

Basically, my pond is in rough shape and I want to do everything I possibly can to save it and bring it back to life! I hope I can accomplish this by taking the advice of experts and picking the brains of those who have much more experience than I.

Thanks!

Welcome PM93.

I'd get bids to renovate. Cut a seam in the dam, allow water to drain and dry out over the course of the Summer. Allow water to flow through the existing "pond" through the seam to keep it as dry as possible during rain events this year perhaps into next year. You need the silt and organic material as dry as possible or removing it is nearly impossible. I've seen old ponds like this sit for 2 years and the muck still wasn't dry enough to move. Once it actually does start to dry/harden up you can use dozers and excavators to create the depths you design. A dozer can push a lot of material through the dam onto the backside if [and that's a big IF] the material is dry enough. That would be the cheapest way to remove organic material. If a dozer cannot access and material is too wet the only way to remove is with an excavator - takes a lot more time [and budget] to get that project done as you have to incorporate dump trucks now. More toys = more $.

If you want to excavate and create a new pond, you also have to decide where to place all the material you're removing. Given your small acreage it will require some careful thought - you can't just pile it up.

Lastly - whenever we renovate a pond there exists the risk of piercing the clay liner and creating leaks by excavating into suspect material. It requires a careful and experienced pond engineer to inspect the native material and be on the watch for sand, gravel, glacial till, rock, etc. I will actually stand in the middle of the basin and visually inspect material as it's being removed. This requires significant trust in the equipment operator, as you can imagine.

I know you're going to ask this later, so here goes:

In NE I could get this project completed on a 2 AC pond for probably $20k - if suspect material is encountered and we have to install and compact a clay liner you're looking at another $5-$10k depending on liner depth. If you lack clay on site and have to truck to site there's another big chunk.

Might make sense to reduce the pond size by 50-75% - would save significant $. A 1/2 - 1 ac pond is still a blast.

Or....you could drain it and fill it in.

If you ever want to talk feel free to ping me, my time is free to the PB Family. tj@hudlandmgmt.com

Depending on your budget and lay of the land, you could consider a pond/wetland project and use the wetland as a settling pond upstream of the main pond to collect sediment. Also, check ahead of time to make sure that you are not disturbing an existing wetland that is protected by law so you are not surprised by fines. Wetlands make great wildlife habitat.

Pondman, your story is very similar to where I found myself a few years ago...old farm house on new to me property, 2 foot deep 50 yr old pond, and the desire to make it fresh again. The only difference is that my pond was only a 1/4 acre. The renovation went just like TJ described in that my pond/dirt guy cut the dam with a mini-ex just wide enough to drain the pond of water and, then, deep enough to approach the original depth of the pond. This depth allowed the 8 foot of muck to dewater for the most part. The dam was cut in the early summer (about May IIRC) and let alone unitil October. We had an average Missoiuri summer as far as rain was concerned. In October, he returned and cut the dam large enough to drive a track loader through and started scooping and pushing the muck out. The clay from the cut was set aside to be used to fill the cut back in later. Once he had pushed as much as possible through the cut and piled in at the back side of the dam, he started scopping it up and driviing it up the pondside of the dam and then dumped it over the back side. The dam was barely wide enough to drive my 8N trackor accross before the renovation...now I can turn the tractor around on the 100' long dam. There was ALOT of muck removed. This left the back side of the dam looking like the moon, full of lumpy un-aesthetic piles that would allow a person on foot to sink up to there thighs. It was very spongy. The far end was deepened slightly and that clay was also packed into the dam cut. The following early summer a rubber tired skid steer was used to dress the back side of the dam which still wanted to pump the ground as it traveled across it. I then used my 8N to finish blade it out. Grass seed was sown and the rest is history, it's a whole new world and well worth it to me. All in all, it took a full year to go from draining it unitl it was filled back up with water and grass growing.

Would a moderator please combine this thread with pondman93's other thread, "Old Pond, need some help! New to This"
Thanks in advance.

pondman93, here is good, wise counsel. Quarter Acre and TJ have the experience behind them. RAH and I both are all about increasing wildlife habitat. I imagine some more members will chime in soon with ideas.

I hesitate to continue replies in your other thread, as this one seems to be taking off.

Many pondmeisters have use beneficial bacteria. The results, when they do occur, are not quick. I mean you don't get feet of muck reduction in a year or anything like that. That muck is a combination of silt/soil that has washed in and organic debris such as decaying leaves, dead plants and algae, dead fish, on and on. So, in effect, it is fertilizer for more algal growth.

It seems to me that somehow scooping the muck from part of the 2 acres and depositing it in another part of the 2 acres as fill will get you a deeper but smaller, useful pond. How to keep the deposited muck from sloughing back into the excavated part will be bordering on magic. Otto probably can help with ideas for that. I'm thinking some kind of retainer? It may be an engineering marvel that will make a wonderful story for PondBoss magazine.

I cannot address your thoughts on using a muck vacuuming service as I've no experience with that technology.

TJ, what can you add? You think outside the box.

Thanks for the replies so far everyone! I'll respond to each of you below.

@teehjaeh57 I appreciate the feedback. While I would like to consider something like this my budget may not allow for a full restore like that. In addition to that there are a few caveats. Firstly, my pond is fed by a creek. The creek runs through my township hits my big wetland area and then from there it feeds what is left of my pond. In addition, my outflow feeds another creek which continues to run through the township, which includes multiple other properties. So anything that I do on the scale that you are talking may also require substantial permits in addition to the amount of money it would take to actually get this done. I've tried to look around my area (South Western PA) and I haven't really found anyone that actually does this type of work. Maybe I just don't have the right connections, but no one has been willing to price this out for me and quite frankly its likely I won't be able to afford it considering I just moved into this place. Even if I did find someone, I don't have a dam that can be easily cut. Its more of a concrete spill way raised up from the water line of the pond which sends all the overflow to the creek I mentioned. The section that could be considered a "dam" is where my driveway runs. Most of the pond is cut down into level ground. The far edge of the pond is where my driveway runs and then further over from the driveway there is a drop off which is probably about as deep as where the original pond bottom used to be. If this is cut I 1.) won't be able to leave my house during the renovation and 2.) could potentially flood some of my neighbors property. In conclusion, all I am saying as that starting over may not be an option for me. I've heard of some businesses that will do some type of vacuuming of the pond floor to remove silt. How legitimate is this? If it is, could this help me? There is a business about 4 hours from me that will charge about $3500 a day to remove silt, but no confirmation yet on whether or not they travel that far for a job (my guess is no).

@RAH I've thought of that, but I do really want to have some presence of fish in my pond at some point if I can. I have seen some very tiny fish, but I don't think there is much there. I do have a large population of frogs, a ton of red-winged black birds (and others) have taken to nesting in my vast sea of cattails and other various critters. Part of my issue is that the wetland area is fed by a creek. The water fills my pond and then the outflow of my pond feeds another creek. I could seriously damage, not just my ecosystem, but others if I do not do this correctly.

@Quarter Acre I think my response to TJ is pretty applicable to yours. I'd love to do this, but not so certain that its possible given the circumstances.

@4CornersPuddle Sorry about created another thread, I wasn't sure if this would gain much traction here. I appreciate the feedback and assistance you've provided thus far. I'd be all for some type of excavation, I just need to find someone near me that would do it. I have a Kubota BX23S with a backhoe, but that barley allows me to scoop the pond's edge. I need something much bigger to help with this. Ideally, I'd like to preserve my current habitat, i just really want my pond to be a bit deeper and silt free so I can get some fish going. I have confidence I can maintain it, but I started off with something in rough shape.

Also, here is the other thread I started: http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=39956&Number=520036#Post520036

Perhaps there is a bit more context here that I may not have mentioned from my initial post or my reply. Thanks for any help ya'll can give me!

You've already received some very good advice from TJ and QA. TJ's comment about "careful thought" is worth its weight in gold.

Take a look at my pond renovation thread to get a small idea of what you're up against.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=500175#Post500175

From what you've described, your situation is a bit more complicated than what I had to deal with.

You have a daunting task ahead of you, but where there's a will, there's a way.

Dragline. This sounds like work cut out for one of those old 50' or 75' tall dragline machines. There's an array of cables that would make the Wizard of Oz happy, and a large clamshell type of scoop that buckets out muck and mud efficiently.

A friend of mine who managed a wildlife area out west of Boise, Idaho got to use one for a season to dredge out old waterfowl ponds and to dig new ones. It seems to me that the one he used was on loan from Army Corp of Engineers, or was military surplus. Pennsylvania is coal country; it could be that there is a machine somewhere in western Pa. that could be rounded up.

I don't think there's any way to renovate .5 ac of the pond without the 1.5 ac of silt flowing in after a few rain events/current - which is filling in your excavated pond again. Check with your NRCS and request a list of engineers and ask them to come out and take a look. They should provide an estimate for free and insight on whether they think the project is worth attempting.

While I love a good fight and never surrender, you currently have a wetland [max depth 2'] and without significant capital investment and permits it sounds like you should likely manage it as one moving forward. Waterfowl, cool plants, aquatic critter stuff.

Do you have sufficient land below the wetland that you could construct a new pond as RAH has recommended?

One of the ways you might exploit the wetland is by introducing forage species that would inoculate your fishing bow with forage. You could use things like native topminnows, shredders like crayfish, hyllela Azteca, and/or grass shrimp, eastern mudminnows, Gambusia holbrooki, etc.

I don't know but it seems plausible that construction of a new BOW may be cheaper than trying to renovate the existing wetland.

Great minds think alike (see my comment above)

Yes indeed I need to acknowledge your comment above and have added that in my post.

No need for that. I often comment without reading a whole thread.

The dragline would be great. However, haven't found anyone around with something like that. I can look into some rental places and see what they offer and ask around for anyone/a company/a contractor that would or could do something like this.

I could manage this as a wetland going forward, but I was hopeful I could restore this. I contacted a sediment removal company (closest to me was 4 hours away). The guy said he'd try to do something, but I haven't gotten any pricing information yet. I'd be willing to see what he could do. The way it sounded he would use a large vacuum of sorts and pump as much sediment out as possible. But he said chances are that he'd pump most of the water out along with it. So, not sure how worth it that would be. Besides, one rain storm could wash a portion of all that sediment right back in (or more new sediment) as TJ mentioned.

Any benefit to an aeration system on something this shallow? I'm using one now as I've heard and read that it helps with sediment build up, increases oxygen levels, helps with algae, etc. Any thoughts on the beneficial bacteria products out there that indicate that it will eat away a small amount of muck? If I can't restore it, I'd like to at least make sure it doesn't get worse.

Also, here are some pics of you all are interested! Maybe this will help explain what I am dealing with.