Culvert Fix

[gerard]

OK, I should have listened closer but now it's too late. I dug out the old farm pond and used 20ft of 16inch plastic smooth wall culvert pipe with a 90deg on the water side as the overflow. I didn't pack the dirt down around the pipe because 1. I had an excavator w/ operator there and didn't have enought time to do a lot of hand work, 2. The pipe was 20 feet long, and 3. I have about 18 inches of dirt covering the top of the pipe. My problem is I have small constant seepage on the bottom of the pipe. Enough that the water level eventually drops to the same level as the bottom of the pipe. I would like it to stay at the level of the top of the 90 which is about 18 inches higher. I tried packing some sodium bentonite around the water side of the pipe with limited success. I'm looking for suggestions on how to seal the leak without digging up the whole pipe. My plan at this point is to drain the water down below the pipe level, hand dig under the bottom of the pipe for a foot or so and repack with fresh sodium bentonite and/or make a "collar" with some hydraulic cement. Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[RPM]

Gerard,

Based on my experience with clay dams - which is limited to one large but successful repair using rock baskets and sealed with clay ...

My suggestion is to dig out the first 3 to 4 feet of pipe and re-bury it - compacting as you go. What you might also want to try is adding a substantial 'cap' of clay to the point where your pipe enters the pond. Remove loose material / sludge from around the point of entry first before you add any new material - you'll probably have a good thickness of this. The cap should probably extend at least a couple of feet in each direction from the point of entry - otherwise you won't get a seal.

Stopping ponds from leaking is a real black art though - it's often counter-intuitive and is (on a good day) dirty, heavy work. Best of luck with the project - I'm assuming you won't be working on it much before the Spring anyway!

Patrick

 

[gerard]

You got that right! Went down the other day and the ice is a good 4 inches thick! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the fines will eventually fill in and plug the small seepage I had before winter. It's really just a trickle and probably not worth messing with too much especially now that it's full right to the top of the overflow and that's before the spring runoff. We also have 10 ducks and two geese that will be spening the summer in the pond. They always root around the banks and keep things stirred up so I figure stuff they stir up will eventually get pulled into the seepage and seal things off. Short of that I was thinking of renting a couple of beavers........... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[JJT]

You'll only need a few inches of clay, no need to dig out 3 - 4 feet. Too bad you're not closer - I've got the clay if you've got the truck. I'm 10 miles west of Amsterdam.

 

[gerard]

thanx for the offer - we'll see in the spring if I need to take you up on your offer!! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif