We just finished a one year long renovation of our pond, construction work completed as of yesterday.

Your vegetation ills sound similar to what we experienced. Vegetation (mostly coontail and watermeal) that over the years got worse and worse to the point that you didn't want to swim and where the ability to fish was next to impossible by summertime. It was depressing for us.

We decided to drain the lake and dig out much of the muck that had built up. Adding grass carp a few years back didn't even put a dent in it. Apparently they don't like to eat coontail and water meal but it appeared that the bluegill ate the watermeal as I'd find it in their digestive systems when I filleted them.

It's a big project and can get expensive, but so too can chemically treating it as well.

We found a local guy who owns and operates his own big machinery. He's built many private lakes and ponds in our area and was the one who originally built our lake 40 years ago for my dad. I don't think he's that hip on draining and digging out old lakes and I think he took our project on simply for nostalgia reasons, lol.

Anyways, the reason I am bringing this up is just to put out the idea that maybe you can find a self employed independent contractor in your area that has the equipment and knowledge to help you should you end up choosing to dredge or even drain and dig out your pond. This fine gentleman charged us by the hour and the total cost looks to be close to $11k but we also had other work done apart from the lake while he was out here too. I imagine if we had a company come out here it would have possibly cost us double that amount or more.

It's just a thought. I imagine things are a whole lot more expensive in MD though than for me out here in MO. I was just in Frederick two weeks ago visiting family and I used to live in the Gaithersburg, Germantown area as a kid and then again working after I got out of college.