My experience with this area (I work in Springfield and live and hour south) is a lot of instances of 'springs' around here are nothing more than ground seeps of where the water table has an outlet. If that's the case with your situation the table is so low due to the drought that a 'spring fed' pond won't have any upflow at all.

You also want to be careful digging into an area such as you describe if it truly is just a groundwater seep - there are several posts on this site where someone actually LOST a pond on a dry year - the seep acted as a drain and the rain-filled pond went DOWN the hole, as opposed to the 'spring' adding water to it.

More experienced folks than I will also comment I'm sure.

Dale

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"When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water." - anonymous