Well, my #2 crew has come and gone. They spent last week clearing trees and brush from about a 1/2 acre to access more dirt then dug out a new core down the entire 230' center of the existing dam. The top 18-24" was dry dirt then we found gray wet mud (not sloppy) down10 feet before we hit dry dirt again. He lifted and compacted with better material from our new borrow pit and used a sheep's foot and the weight of 100k rock truck to get the tightest compaction possible.

It appears the first contractor built the dam from muddy/ garbage/ pond bottom material and covered his tracks with a foot or two of better material. I've reseeded with 250lbs of grass seed, some food plot forage and finished off with some fertilizer. This is the 3rd iteration of planting grass. The last step is straw, which I am leaving to the crew to come back a blow into place before the end of the week.

There was no significant sign of leaking other than the dam material was a lot wetter than should have been. It was junk material and not compacted at all. We've lost about 4" of water since last Tuesday until today, but hope it's just from the saturation into dry material.

I've also will be applying 2 units of soil floc to the inside face of the dam (below the waterline) before the end of the weekend.

Fingers crossed....

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