tbergman
Member
A couple of years back, we bought a 47.5 acre horse farm with a nice pond on it. Unfortunately the pond leaks down to about a foot of water within a couple weeks of rain. I have seen it full once, and it fell about 6 inches to a foot a day until it was about two feet deep, then it slowly subsided to about 1 foot deep over the next month or so. It never seems to get any lower than that so it appears not to be leaking in the very bottom. There are trees up to 8" in diameter growing within a few feet up the bank from the 1-2' water level. Poking around while removing some trees I could reach with the backhoe, I found traces of what looks like bentonite, suggesting that the pond has never held water, despite being 15-20 years old, and some half-hearted efforts to seal it up. I have looked carefully for evidence of leaks through the bank and found none. There is no stream below the dam, even right after a pond-filling downpour, so the water must just be draining through the rocky soil. Our soil looks redish, suggesting clay, but it is filled with gravel and quite crumbly. We are in northeast Oklahoma, near Tahlequah. Bentonite and other synthetic pond sealers are all much too expensive, so I am thinking if I could just find a dirt guy who has a clay pit, and get a couple dump trucks of good clay, I might spread it around the edges and work it in. So far I have been unable to locate such a resource. I have no experience in pond building or repair, so any advice on how to seal up the pond on the cheap will be greatly appreciated. For now, I am working on clearing all the trees from the dam. I know they cannot be helping the issue, but I do not think they are the cause either, since none of them have deep roots at all, even though they are pretty large, some are over 20' tall. I have some great resources; a tractor with a road boss grader and bucket, a backhoe, and a small dozer, so I can handle the work myself, once I figure out what I am doing...