Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? 2.5 Acre Pond Gone! work/restroation thread

Project going according to the schedule and big day tomorrow with a pump truck and 5500# of bentonite clay and they add cottonseed husks, met a great guy from a oil/gas deep dive I did on-line. He came out last Fri and met the excavator and we hatched a plan - that takes place tomorrow.

Pond plan is coming together - the solid dam on the neighbors side, to relive any pressure difference seems to make this not so much a folly but an actual chance at something really great. It's all basically roughed in road is leveled/cut in except for an area that needs fill from where we'll cit fill from the new overflow. Took pics from the inside of the crescent area the pond will fill, each pic is from the general area of where the last road ended on the previous pic to give an idea of how big crescent pond is.

Just made the name for this body of water, Crescent Pond.

The entrance, this end will done on the way out.



Note the trees will stay in the pond as structure for the fishery.





There's a 40-50 y/o red oak just past the track hoe and I'm making a bumpout at the base of it. It'll be really cool in 50 years... for someone. I'll be long gone.




Got all the fill needed for a bumpout here.


Hard to see on this pic but this bumpout has two side that slope to 2' under the pond surfance and slope to 8' under the pond surface 10' wide for spawning areas.... this one is done.


North Dam. the level of this pond will regulate the small pond on the other side of the dam with a screened culvert. Both ends are in my property line.


We chatted and decided that 2 of the 3 overflows were gonna have"equalized" water on the other side so I don'e need special beaver proof spillways.. I went and collected two of the three I have from other farm projects...

Looks fantastic!!

Used 79 of these little rascals... brought 100, used 69 in the hole and kept 10 to put around the mouth of the seep tomorrow with 60' x 120' of 6m industrial sheeting.



I didn't take a pic of the highwall on the county road but it's about 60-70d vertial slope up about 50' and you have to use a rope to help hoist yourself up and let safely down. I did that about 9-10 times today...

we started the work at about 1200 noon, first truck shows up, I not exactly sure what to expect and Jerry pops outa the Cab, "man! just off the pluging job yesterday - got called out and worked all night at a rig, just drove up here..." great American! I'm thinking, and over the next hour the other guys show up and a couple trips up and down the slope to guide Mose the excavator into position.

Now Mose, Short for Moses builds ponds for a trade now.... very interesting. Well we're working on the project over all, pumper team was slated for around noon... We chatted at the new East overflow location. and he got to work. It's hilly.


got the North and South roads connected - Kinda felt like sinking the last tie into the last rail to connect them - in some small way


The dude that orchestrated the entire deal Arron Austin, Black T shirt - great guy. Pump truck shows and Jerry pops out, looks he shold be at a Dean Martin gig, then the Amish Mose shows up and the pump helper - we look around and all start cracking wise - we have +250 years standing around 5 dudes and it's not lost on us that many folks have just given up... we chew the fat and the water truck comes up .




Soon we had the config down and got pumping - clay- I didn't know what was supposed to happen and never used Bentonite before so I'm running Mose around, pumpers are doing their thing and I'm also in the pit watching the mud flow... well about now 50 bags into it... I think I better check the neighbors seep... to see if we were right or there was a big void we were pumping my money into- so up the high wall on my side, down the high wall on neighbors side to see the seep and what's going on... a flow thru had just started. Bentonite is the gray tan...


I knew were the source was and early I had taken a pick ax down and cut a couple hundred pounds into/onto the outflow seep on the far side. When I went over this time I stomped the mud down but could see the flow still outflowing into the other pond.

This contingency was thought about prior and we figured "if" se needed to staunch the outflow we'd do it when it needed it not take time away from the project before there was a "target ID'd"

Mose got over there and up and over spoil pile, across a muck tough and put 10 yards on the seep... in about 30m. We let the first 50 bags swell and the water pump truck went back for another load while Mose gotrdone.



Pumped a bunch more bags into the hole, 29 after the 50 bag run from the first run, and it came up to and filled up... putting that plastic and 500# more bentontie on the opening in the AM and 4' of clay fill over the entire mess....


Once we got that all done I came up and a nice tstorm rolled in after everyone had left -


The hole is as plugged as it's gonna get.

Each bag is 50# of bentonite clay.

Yesterday 69 bags of bentonite mud flowed into the crevasse, reserved 10 bags to use this AM to seal the deal. For a total of 79 bags or 3950#'s clay.

So this AM about 0700 Four bags opened and put directly in the end of the hole, then smooshed a couple yards of clay over the hole and area right around the cravasse. We cut sticks and pounded them into the wall over the now patched hole and proceeded to cover the entire area with 6 mil plastic, cutting holes with the machette and hanging the plastic sheeting. Then covered the plastic with 3-4 yards of pond clay and all over the face of the hole. Couple yards of clay smashed on top of the plastic. The plastic was 60'x120' we went with multiple folds keeping it tidy.
Three bags tossed on the wall and areas around the edge of the plastic liner and over the clay. LOTS of plastic liners thicknesses over that and three bags around and behind the plastic after 10 yards or so of clay on the center of the plastic, directly over the hole.

Mooch getting a ride with the pump and gear across the moat..


Mooch rolled from working with the 180th Fighter Wing, a unit of the Ohio Air National Guard, stationed at Toledo Air National Guard Base, Ohio. He does Datalink, digital death we like to call it. Anyway, he was close and came in last night to pitch in to the chores and work here at the farm for Aug chores. Made the clay packing go real nice with an extra set of hands.






Then about 4' of material over the 'hole' mess to seal it in.

If that doesn't seal it, I don't know what else will besides digging it all out and compacting it.

Man that was a lot of work!

I hope it pays off big for you - and you can get back to a more stressless part of pond ownership.

Good luck!

Thanks for following along - nothing else will happen until it fills up - or not. I'll post up what's going on over the next year or so that it should take to fill Crescent Pond back up. Changed the name from long pond. Regardless, I have access to about 1/5 of the farm that was previously inaccessible except by arduous barely passable slopes.

Me and Pepe ( my name for my quad) got busy Sat afternoon. A ton of lime, 10 bales and 200# of grass seed.



Happiness was a set of empty pallets! With the heat and humidity I was a filthy critter at the end of it....


All the all the planning and effort for this project is complete. It went from an inaccessible, too steep to walk on spoil bank to:








taken from BumpOut 1


Taken from BumpOut 2


Taken from BumpOut 3


Taken from BumpOut 4




Ibid: Neighbors dam repair was completed yesterday, so all planned actions on the objective are completed. Now we wait and see but I think it'll pass.

I can't wait to see pictures as it fills.

WOW!
What a big project...good for you!
The bass you used to get were awesome for Ohio,or anywhere... can see why you invested in this project like you did.


Thank you for your service brother...12B here.

From Aug to Nov we've been in a drought for the local area - about 6" below normal, setup PondCam today to observe what's happin down there. I'd say we have 3-4' filled of the 10-11' expected the water volumn with removing the middle - as this is a "pothole" and no streams run into it I don't expect the level to remain constant, but the overflow should empty any excess. I plan to wait until Apr or so and test the water to see if it needs amended or not and if the plug holds, the neighbors rebuilt pond is up to the overflow we put in = so I'm hopeful for my two ponds.

Well the water is rising as the rains come in. On Saturday I took an hour or so and cut the snags off about 4' below the anticipated high water level. I reduced the snaggs as I really don't want to use 50# braid for bluegill...



8F and chainsaw work made some nice working working conditions - nice to just walk out and getRdone....


Replaced the camera and getting some pics of the water rising and installed a not so secure PVC measuring element to the overflow. I plan to move the camera and level meter to get a good watch on the overflow and levels.

The pond is 11' deep throughout the 1100' and has risen about 7 feet so far.... since Aug, with a 3 month drought Aug->Oct On track for it hitting the overflow about March and that will signal the start of forage stocking.

WOW.

That's awesome.

.

Very kool time lapse….

getting there inch by inch... you can really see the old pond high water level on the far bank. new pond high water via the new overflow will be about 1" below the old high water mark.

28 Dec to 16 Feb - pond rose about 8" with ~2" of rain... Fingers crossed.... And yes - I'll be picking a pic a day until it hits the overflow.

A month and half's worth of rain, ice and snow in the Gif below 28 Dec - 23 Feb...






...Yep

Cool Bobcat!!

That's good that the pond is filling up. We are still WAY low here.

At least 1' since the 13th - that's 12 inches x 531,000SqFt or 12" x 329,220 gallons ( 3,950,640 gallons with no loss) of the surface acre plus the limited watershed for this pothole pond. I think the ice uplift pulled the measuring stake out with the rise.

The measuring stake could be bent over and on the bottom of the pond in that location too.

Got to the farm to get frost seeding of plots done and checked up on Crescent Pond. Overall 90+% happy, Mose didn't follow my direction on how high I wanted the limit of the escarpment into the spoil bank and now he'll have to come and remediate a portion of it - but that's minor compared with the overall job he did at the front end. The dates on the pics are a couple days and near 2" of rain apart, the pic of the stake and overflow were from today. About 14-15" to the overflow.





Apparently I put the pvc better than I thought








Plan to get the water sampled in the next couple weeks. It's an old strip mine pond that had great fish - so any ideas how detailed I should go on the water analysis?

I'd check for everything. Only have to do that once, you don't know what they buried in the spoils around the pond. Heavy metals, etc.

[updated]

Need a seizure warning on the flashing pics:)

LoL - I can adjust the "Time between pics" but more than .25 sec it starts to drag out. I'll prob wait till it hits the overflow and then post the last time-lapse and stretch it out.

stressless, I sent you a PM.