Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Advice on river muck

Hey all,

I have a small creek in Texas that I am trying to cleanup aesthetically for the primary purpose of having people enjoy themselves with swimming and lounging. Which means I would love to remove as much as the muck/mud as reasonably can be done along with the overgrown plant life.

Information:
The creek is dammed to around 4 ft high.
The creek is around 20-40 ft wide.
The bottom is majority rock slate.
The bottom has around 6-12 inches of muck that is built up and is feeding large swathes of aquatic plants.
We have the capacity to empty the entire thing on demand by removing some boards and it will fill up again slowly in a day or 2.
I have a good size Kubota tractor with a front end loader I might be able to get into the creek but we've tried this before. Its pretty inefficient as the attachments we have don't scrape the rock slate very well. (front end loader bucket, rock rake)

Here are some pics of the plant life and muck (can be hard to see in pictures)

https://imgur.com/a/OlTeCjP

Anyone have any advice or better ideas for something like this? From my reading it seems like here are some options:

Diaphragm or Trash pump - May be hard to get the muck out. Don't care about wasting the water as it'll refill.
Bacterial Pellets - The flow of the creek is relatively slow, might be able to strategically get them where I want them, cons: Takes awhile to see results if any and mud/silt is leftover once bacteria do their job.

Welcome to Pond Boss!!

I don't think we've ever had a similar request, but lets see if anyone has any advice.

I can rent a mini-excavator and haul trailer pretty cheap in my area. I have easily driven one in and out of my creek on several occasions. (You do need to know the basic safety rules of how to use your bucket and arm to safely navigate slopes.)

I think construction equipment "horse power" will be much more efficient than pumping or bacterial action.

Can you leave your dam boards out during an expected dry time? (Like August in Texas!) If you let the material dry out, it will be much easier to move. The muck bottom is probably mostly flat now, perhaps dig a small channel with a shovel to let the remaining creek flow bypass your muck?

If dry (or drier) you could then pile up the muck using a mini-excavator with a smooth-edge bucket (no teeth). You could then much more easily use your Kubota and FEL to haul out the muck.

It would probably be easiest to push the muck downstream through your dam opening. However, that is probably not legal on a Texas stream? Better to build a small ramp and drive the muck out and spread it on your property. If that doesn't work, you can lift and pivot the excavator and dump a significant percentage over the bank when you are operating near the bank. In the middle, you can move the material twice with the excavator and get it over the bank. (If it is not working to remove it with your Kubota.)

Operating the mini-ex is very easy. You will be efficiently scooping and turning in about 5 minutes of seat time. However, driving on non-flat terrain does take some skill/knowledge. Make sure you get some expert advice on that, since that is an actual safety issue!

Good luck on improving your swimmin' hole!

This is great. Pricing isn't bad at home depot. I will take this into consideration!

I use the independent rental places that make most of their money renting specialty equipment to contractors, plus renting to "weekend workers" like me. They are cheaper (in my area) and the equipment is generally better maintained because it is used properly.

(However, I have rented from Home Depot with good results when the smaller sized equipment better fit my application.)