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Pond assessment/repair in eastern Iowa

DGorman

DGorman

Active Member
I close on my new place in a couple weeks and I'm starting to try to find somebody to check out the small pond that's included. Judging by a couple trees that should be in or very near the water, it looks like the level is down about three feet from normal. The previous owner's husband took care of all the outdoor stuff, and since he passed away she doesn't have a lot of information about it. I plan to check with the nrcs office as soon as I get the deed info, as I believe the pond was built in the mid 90's, and there's a possibility there was some program use during construction. I don't see any visible leaks on the back side of the dike, but it's very thick back there and would be fairly easy to miss a small leak. The water level came up a few inches after these last few heavy rains, so I put a marker stick along the edge to monitor the level. If it's leaking, it's pretty slow. There is a giant groundhog running around the area (got him on camera a few weeks back) so I'm worried he's causing problems. I've never owned a pond before and have no idea who to call to help me figure out what I should do to make this right. Any help would be appreciated.
 
I've got a pond with a similar issue, think it was caused by muskrats. I've been meaning to pick up some bentonite clay to throw in and see if that will seal it. Most well drillers have bentonite for capping old wells, called Gingerich Well Service in Kalona and they have a variety of clay products for around $15/bag, 50 lb bags. Neighbor told me he fixed his leaky pond in this fashion. Barnhart Construction from West Branch built our pond and also mentioned that clay might be a way to fix it.
 
I'd been reading about bentonite but never thought of well drillers. That's a great lead. I wouldn't think I'd really need to do the whole pond, as its not draining below the level of concern, so I would assume the leak is at that level. I still may try to contact someone that does ponds professionally to figure out what I should be doing maintenance wise. He has a makeshift aerator set up, but it isn't currently running and the pond has a pretty good layer of algae. I put some pond treatment in it but that hasn't seemed to help at this point. She didn't run the aerator last year so I'm not sure if there are any surviving fish at this point. I would just like to get this pond back to its potential, and if I don't do it right away I'm afraid it will get out on the back burner. Plus, if the fish all died, the sooner I fix it the sooner I'll be able to restock.
 
Is there any trees on the back side of the dike? Sounds a lot like what we had going on with our pond on some land my dad bought a few years ago. It's a 1.5 acre pond, hadn't been taken care of for years. Found out it was a gov't built pond made in the 70s. The water level was way down, about 3-4 ft from where it should have been. Both sides of the dike had 20-30 yr old trees growing on it, which caused it to leak and the drain pipe or overflow pipe was a lot further down than it needed to be. Anyways my uncle came out with his excavator and took the trees down and cleared up the dike. He also dug as far as he could reach with the scoop in the pond and threw that pond clay/muck on he backside of the dike. Also added a new drain pipe a lot higher up so now instead of an 8 ft pond we have a 12' deep pond. Hasn't been leaky since.

If you want I can give you my uncles contact info, he's in eastern IA.
 
Some ponds have water levels that will naturally fluctuate a lot. Watershed size will have a lot to do with that and rainfall levels. In fall, they are more likely to be down than in spring. If there are leaks, probably just depends what type of soil and where the leak is, whether or not it is a problem. Seems like most ponds in my location have some leakage below ponds, professionally installed ones use toe drains with that in mind. So every situation is different.
 
DGorman said:
I close on my new place in a couple weeks and I'm starting to try to find somebody to check out the small pond that's included. Judging by a couple trees that should be in or very near the water, it looks like the level is down about three feet from normal. The previous owner's husband took care of all the outdoor stuff, and since he passed away she doesn't have a lot of information about it. I plan to check with the nrcs office as soon as I get the deed info, as I believe the pond was built in the mid 90's, and there's a possibility there was some program use during construction. I don't see any visible leaks on the back side of the dike, but it's very thick back there and would be fairly easy to miss a small leak. The water level came up a few inches after these last few heavy rains, so I put a marker stick along the edge to monitor the level. If it's leaking, it's pretty slow. There is a giant groundhog running around the area (got him on camera a few weeks back) so I'm worried he's causing problems. I've never owned a pond before and have no idea who to call to help me figure out what I should do to make this right. Any help would be appreciated.
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How did this pond project end up? I have a similar situation. I have a pond guy lined up to clear huge trees off my dam, dozer all the trees around the perimeter, cut open the dam and let it drain, and dredge it this summer. My water level looks very low and wondered if you got your leaking fixed.
 
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