Building a pond questions

Henro · Oct 4, 2004

PHsteph,

My pond is spring fed and around here muskrats can be a problem.

What works for my neighbor and I (with me following his advice) is keeping the level of the pond very close to the level of the top of the "levee" side of the pond.

Seems that to do their damage, the muskrats will tunnel into the earth, under water level, then come up and built a den, or whatever you call it. If you keep the water high enough, when the come up, they see daylight and soon know to go somewhere else, like the high side of the pond, if it is in a sloping area like mine is.

I have a flat area all around my pond now, and have not seen signs of muskrats for a number of years. I once tried putting chicken wire in the mud at the pond edge, but honestly don't know if that helped or not. Probably was a waste of time...

I don't know what one would do if his pond were not spring fed, and level varried a lot with season.

Another thought. I used to mix cement with my clay soil if I wanted to make a plug where I had leakage in my pond. I have not done this for ages, but I believe it worked and the clay-cement mix hardened much better than clay alone. You might consider a test if you need something to harden up a bit and keep the water in better.I am pretty sure this can help in some cases. I sure believed it did when I did it.

bczoom · Oct 4, 2004

Henro,

A pond with no muskrats in your area??? You're pretty darn lucky.
Another good option to plug holes created by the varmints is bentonite. It's very easy to get in a hole and I've never had a muskrat go back into it.

Dargo · Oct 4, 2004

Before I moved to where I am now and built my own pond, I lived on a shared lake with 16 other houses. We had the same problem with muskrats eating away at our dam. I first planned on trapping them, but the other homeowners thought that would be cruel and could trap someone's dog. (If you've seen a muskrat trap, that is not really possible) My current method, using a 7mm Magnum and picking them off was also not acceptable in a populated area.

We ended up bringing out an expert from some government department that specializes in soil erosion and conservation. The first thing he did was to flush a different colored dye down everyone's toilet to see if anyone was polluting the lake. Sure enough, two of my neighbors were given 10 days to repair their septic systems or move out of their house until the problem was corrected (talk about harsh!). The second thing he did was to have this drilling rig come out and drill holes about every 3 or 4 feet all the way across our dam and inject Bentonite (sp?).

Apparently not only was our dam leaking, but it was actually moving. By going off of survey markings, their corp of engineers concluded that our dam had actually moved about 6" outwards over the last 40 years. Anyway, this Bentonite stuff, i'm told there are several varities of it, pretty well turned the dirt in our dam practically into concrete. All of the leaks stopped and the guys with the survey equipment came back every 6 months or so for a couple of years and they seemed satisfied that our dam quit moving.

All of the houses on the lake shared in the expense of this fix and the state provided much of the work for us to maintain the water ecology or something. Anyway, after they were gone, we dug up the top of one of their drillings and checked out their bentonite stuff. It looked like dirt, but you couldn't hardly drive a nail into it. I only lived there another couple of years, but it did fix the problem. Oh yeah, I got a kick out of it when the state guy told us that we ought to trap those muskrats out of the lake! Where I live now, I have those irritating things boring into my island causing big sink holes around the edges. I need to check the sites on my 7mm mag anyway. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

bczoom · Oct 4, 2004

( Anyway, this Bentonite stuff, i'm told there are several varities of it, pretty well turned the dirt in our dam practically into concrete.
Anyway, after they were gone, we dug up the top of one of their drillings and checked out their bentonite stuff. It looked like dirt, but you couldn't hardly drive a nail into it.

Where I live now, I have those irritating things boring into my island causing big sink holes around the edges. I need to check the sites on my 7mm mag anyway. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif )

I'd recommend to anyone that has a pond visited by muskrats to keep a couple bags of bentonite around. If you can't get them with a 7mm (or equivalent) before they start digging you're probably going to need it.
A few years back, I didn't see a hole and they burrowed all the way through the bank thus draining about 12" of water out of the pond. The water flowing through it bored the hole out to about 10" diameter. I packed with bentonite and it never leaked through there again.

weedsportpete · Oct 5, 2004

Where can you get Bentonite? I looked around some last year and all I could find was a place in Ohio that was going to charge more for shipping than the cargo.
Thanks

bczoom · Oct 5, 2004

( Where can you get Bentonite? I looked around some last year and all I could find was a place in Ohio that was going to charge more for shipping than the cargo.
Thanks )

I've got some e-mails out to friends that use it a lot. Waiting to hear back.
If you want to check with some places near you, you may want to check with companies that have the following services (probably in the order listed). Not sure if they'll sell retail but it may be worth a shot.
Groundwater and remediation services (companies that clean up ground under and near gas stations).
Companies that install underground pools.
Companies that install wells.
Companies that build ponds.

Bird · Oct 5, 2004

Add to your list:

Companies that drill oil wells.

bczoom · Oct 5, 2004

Bird,

I'd thought of that but didn't include. Oil wells aren't real big between Rochester and Syracuse NY. Must be a TX thing. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

bczoom · Oct 6, 2004

Weedsportpete,

Got some e-mails back.
For your location (and many others), the best source for getting bentonite would be from a well digging company.

Going rate is about $15-20 for a 50# bag.

(for the groundwater and remediation service companies, they use a lot but have the well drillers bring it to the site)