Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam New Pond Construction in Watkins Glen, NY

I thought I should post an update 7 months later. The contractor finished the main excavation, dam building and topsoil contouring end of May. I had been making minor changes and additions using my Deere 5075E up until the big freeze came through and stopped everything. In addition to the 7000yds they moved, plus putting back 3000yds of topsoil, I moved about a 150 tons of clay, 100 tons of top soil, 80 tons of gravel, 2 tons of bentonite, and 56 tons of sand. Now I appreciate just how efficient bulldozers and excavators can be.

Overall I think it turned out fine except for limited depth brought about from avoiding glacial gravel vanes that sometimes plague the NY Finger Lakes. Instead of 9’ planned at the deepest we are just under 8’. The veins were initially unpredictable; when drilling holes for the dock poles, for one hole I hit sandy gravel and the hole filled to the top with water in a matter of hours, while only 10’ away it was all clay and dry as a bone. Because of this, I was able to dig the swimming area off the dock down another 2 feet deeper from where they left it, since this area was between two of these gravel veins. The clay was hard enough in that area so that half of the digging was done with a foot of water in the hole.

I have tried to attach a drone picture from late November, before the dock was completed.
If this seems to work then I will add a couple more posts on what we did in building out this pond.