Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Wood Chips creating acid runoff

I have about 1/2 acre pond that is spring fed. One of the springs is about a 20x20 pool above the pond. above that 20 x20 area is large amount of wood chips and logs that were used to fill in some rough ground. The woods chips and logs were put in over the winter.

Now i have acid runnoff into the spring pool, coming from the wood chips. scummy red stuff across what used ot be a beautiful clear spring with tadpoles, frogs and bluegill in it.

Any thoughts or recommendations on alleiving this? I'm considering how to makea small dam somewhow to to catch it as it hits the spring pool and then apipe to run around the pond all the way to back side but the terrain is not really feasible for this.

Welcome to Pond Boss!

Do you happen to know what kind of trees the wood chips & logs are from?

Haul in some clay, or mine it onsite if available, and put a cap on the woodpile.
Dump a few ton of ag lime on the pile before you cover it up, then more lime on top.
Fertilize, till, seed with grass and dutch clover.

If it's not possible to cap it off, the ag lime will at least help with the ph of the runoff coming from the pile.

Or... dig the whole mess up and get it out of your watershed, then use proper fill material to re-grade the rough site.

Test the soil and water to start. You can burn wood and create potash and mix with lime to offset any acidity issues. But first you have to know your starting point with soil and water. Usually the soil reflects what has been there over eons and the water reflects that.

Is the red scummy water from the woodpile entering as "surface water" that is running into your spring pool, or is it entering as "groundwater" that has percolated into the underground spring from the overlying woodpile area?

The former situation will be easier to cure.

Is there any red clay in your area? There is a chance that the scummy water is not coming from the wood chips themselves. If there was heavy equipment in the area to cut and stack the woodpile, they could have disturbed a clay layer that is essentially eroding into your spring pool. Is there any new construction even farther up the elevation from your pond? That could also be causing the change.

Good luck clearing up your pond!

Here in southwest Michigan many seeps (springs) with have a lot of very red rust looking color. Floating on the water. It looks scary but is the product of iron eating bacteria in the hard ground water coming to the surface. Possible there?
But if it is a "tea" from wood chips then apart from digging them out ?

How acidic is the acid? Numbers please when you get test results.

Thanks for all the thoughts

Answers by post sequence
#2. Everything , maples to magnolia, pine to popular, hemlock to holly, it was power line crew stuff
#3. I have considered hauling lime. It’s not really feasible to haul out of this point without spending major money
#4 👍
#5surface water , it’s coming across the ground from the pile.
No clay around here , no surface disturbance just the trucks dumping chips
We do have lots of old strip pits ,coal mines, in my region and it appears to be the same iron nitrate that comes from them
No disturbance above , I own the land both runoff directions. It’s coming from the chip pile somehow.
#6 I would have expected to be a dark brown “tea” based on water accumulation on around other chips I have seen. But it looks like acid mine runoff or other places where the churt rock is exposed
#7. Yes sir, I’ll get some number when I get home again next week

Sooooo, sorry for dissapearing. I came down with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever of all things, and was not worth killing for about 4 weeks.... and still have good and bad days.

Anyway, the update to this I have drained this spring pond several times over the last few months. The first good news was the issue was not in my spring outflow. . But I definately had 5 different entrance points over on the East side. But the most recent good news is I drained it a few days ago while the water overall was looking better than back in the winter. What I found was only one entrance point and it was a very small flow.... and very little acidic look to it.....

So my conclusion at the moment is, that the wet weather springs, which seem to move around from year to year totally unrelated to rainfall or aquifer levels, is that those hit a pocket of irony clay and I got the acid for the next few months... At the moment, maybe it's gone completley. Fingers crossed.

The last good news and the best of all, is none of the fish inside this spring pond seem affected or the bullfrog tadpoles of which there are one year olds and two year olds present, the latter of course sprouting legs and diminishing tails.