Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it.

   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it. #1  

keegs

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The County, ME
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Kubota M5640SUD
I have a small 1 acre pond on my property that I'd like to spruce up and maybe use it as a swimming hole. The water is clean but there is surface algae in the summer months. There's a 6" outlet pipe and a small feeder brook on opposite sides. There are also feeder springs.

The pond is silting up on the one side by the feeder brook. Cattails have established themselves around most of the perimeter and one side it is quite shallow. The middle is about 10-15 feet deep.

I was thinking about getting an excavator in with an extended arm to go around the pond to remove some of the material to make it deeper.
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it. #2  
That is the only way I can think of........besides a dredge.
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it. #3  
but there is surface algae in the summer months.

I have read that something like an aerator, agitator or fountain will help with the algae.

Any fish ?
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it. #4  
Around here, Gradalls are use. Wheeled truck with a expandable boom with a wide bucket on the end used for grading banks. Probably cheaped that an tracked excavator.

mark
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it.
  • Thread Starter
#5  
Thanks Will... Na..no fish. The otters keep it cleaned out of everything but minnows and frogs....and little ones at that. I'd like to clean it up and get a floating dock that we can use as a diving platform. There's no power there so I guess if the algae is a big problem I might have to go chemical on it.
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it.
  • Thread Starter
#6  
Thanks MJ....I googled it. Looks like the right tool..but not sure whether something like this would be available in rural ME. I'll check though. I hired an outfit last year to prep for a new garage slab that I thought I'd call on again.
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it. #7  
I was thinking about getting an excavator in with an extended arm to go around the pond to remove some of the material to make it deeper.

I also have 1 acre pond. When we moved here there was 20 feet of cattails all the way around it. It was an eyesore. Hired a guy with a big trackhoe and he removed the cattails plus made it deeper in a day. Two things you need to think about. 1> Be sure he doesn't dig too deep around the dam which could undermine it and possibly cause it to leak. 2> Where are you going to put the enormous amount of muck (which can take a couple years to dry out).
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it.
  • Thread Starter
#8  
Hi rekees,

Neither the dam side (the north side) nor the east side need too much deep dredging..just need the cattails cleared is all really. The outlet pipe is on north side and special care would have to be taken in that area. The west side is very shallow and needs deepening and the south side is where the feeder brook enters the pond. The south side also needs deepening but is partially wooded which could make access difficult. I was told that the muck should be piled up and left to dry out. I was also told that it wouldn't smell too good. I eventually plan to dump it over the dam side and leave it at that.

It doesn't look like that even with the extension boom the excavator can get too far into the pond. Was that your experience? How much deeper were you able to go? I also thought it might be about a days work with the excavator.
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it. #9  
My primary objective was cattail removal so I told the guy not to dig any deeper than necessary for fear of dam damage. He removed around 1-2 feet and that was enough to get under the cattail roots. I'm sure he could have gone down several feet more.
 
   / Best way to dredge a pond w/out draining it. #10  
My dad tells me that if you throw a bale of barley straw into the dugout/pond that it will keep the algae away. I had one in my dugout last summer and no algae, but it was only the second year of the dugout and I don't know if it would have grown algae without it.

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