I have gotten some bids to truck in clay to seal my leaking pond. The lowest was $14,000.00 to dig out two feet of soil and replace with clay on my one acre pond. Too expensive for me! I have a local source of bentonite and a small and medium (90 horsepower) farm tractor. What kind of equipment will I need to rent to remove soil from the pond bottom and put in the bentonite seal?

Tell me if this is crazy. I have a harrigator which will loosen the soil down about 4 inches. I could then remove the loosened soil with the blade on my tractor - maybe repeat the process a couple of times to get deep enough to spread the bentonite. I would probably have to do this in stages. Would it be possible to do this in stages - say a 100 foot circle at the bottom first and then working in concentric circles and overlapping the seal?