Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Holes in my pond

First I wanna thank everyone for helping with some of my other questions. Finally I have found a place where I can get some answers and maybe help others.

Sorry if this is lengthy, I wanted to give you most of the facts.

Here is the deal. My pond is one year old last weekend. When we built it we dug as deep as we could and hit a liitle rock, probally a patch smaller than a twin size bed. Also we noticed a trickle of water from a spring, I guess, above the rock we hit. Anyway we were limited on dozer time and new at pond building and we left it as it was. Over the winter it filled to the drain pipe, it was full as of January. Over the summer it was dropping a little at a time, to where is is now about 3 feet below the drain. I thought it maybe flowing out the the patch of rock we hit. Also over the summer I noticed holes, several of them, in the upper reaches of the pond. They aree not critter holes of any kind, abd they are anywhere from 2 inches in diameter or as big as you leg. Some of the smaller ones are a few inches deep and the larger ones a couple feet,I thought they may have been the reminents of an old fence. But after further inspection I could feel cold water in them, much colder than the pond. So now I am thinking it may just be a spring that flows backwards draining the pond once enough weight gets over the holes. In the summer months the soils around them looked like a funnel sloping into the hole, kinda crater shaped if you will, like water was beeing sucked into the hole.I am pretty confident that the holes are causing the drain in my pond.

I have been patching them with concrete and benonite. The concrete seems it does a better job, the benonite can't soak all the water the "spring" has.

Well the water had came up over the past month to a level I thought maybe the pond had finally sealed. (Plus I had been throwing grass clipping in it to posibally cover the rock and help it seal.) Today I noticed new holes near some of the ones I had filled with concrete and they where at the very edge of the water.

Is there any way to totally eleminate the holes so my pond could raise a few more feet? Benonite does not seem to work. I need something to seal them or cap them. Or do you think they will jusst pop up somewhere else? I dont want to put a liner in it due to cost. Could I do a partial liner over the area of suspect?

Sorry for the long winded post. Thanks for any help/advice in advance.

Donnie

Donnie, it is my belief that you will have to either live with it or drain it and HOPE to cover the whole leaky spring area with about 3+ ft. of first class clay.

I know of no way to use a partial liner.

Sorry.

what kind of bentonite are you using? if powder, i'm not surprised it didnt work. if chip, then you have a more serious problem and I concur with dave.

there are different brands of chip (normally i see/use 3/4" to minus chip from 40 lb bags......wyoben, enviroplug....there are probably many other brands). try chip first if you havent already, if that doesnt work, you may need to consider draining and installing thick lining of good clay soil