First post here. I live in New York's Hudson Valley. For the first year in our new house, we had a problem with standing water in our front yard. It was a soupy mess. We decided to put in a French drain, but upon digging we discovered two or three natural springs burbling up through the ground. We have clay soil here so our landscape guy suggested digging out a pond and draining the overflow to the drainage swale on our property line. This sounded too good to be true to me - I'd always wanted a pond, and this was like nature's way of insisting that I have one now...

So they dug the hole, about 15-20 ft in diameter, 4 ft deep in the lowest parts and it filled rather quickly. Since the initial fill, the level has steadily dropped. Yesterday I dropped a garden hose in there to try to bring the level up (since my wife is now beginning to worry that instead of a pond, we have a new mud pit in our front yard). It didn't seem to make much difference. The water level is still a good 6" below the level of the drain pipe. Now I realize the soil needs to compact and seal up, and the pond/hole has only been there for about two weeks. The landscape guy who dug the pond says it's just evaporation. Now granted we haven't had much rain the past few weeks, but it hasn't been hot and it seems evaporation shouldn't cause that much water loss, as it should be replenished by the spring. If this is evaporation, then I hate to see what might happen when we have a two or three week dry spell in July.

Is it possible the soil is still becoming compacted and hasn't fully sealed yet? Is it possible we need to use some sort of product to help seal it? Is it possible that I got talked into a pond but am going to end up with a muddy pit as the focal point of our front yard (which likely will lead to me being murdered by my wife)?

I've read other threads on similar cases, but thought I'd present my own set of circumstances and see what you guys thought. Thanks in advance for all advice and suggestions!