How To Repair A Pond Dam

A Guide to Pond Leak Repair

PHOTO: FOTOLIA/KENZFOTODESIGN

Cease your pond leak repair and savour your stocked and gleaming trunk of water

I recently bought a 6 ane/2 acre parcel of land that has a pond on it. However, my new water hole has a leak at the base of the dam, which causes the h2o to seep out at the bottom on the back side of the barrier. I want to stock the pond, but tin can't do so considering of the fluctuating water level. Is in that location annihilation I can do to seal this leak, short of draining the pond and reworking the whole dam with a bulldozer?

Pond Leak Repair

Leaky ponds are similar most ailments, in that preventing the problem is a lot less expensive, and easier, than curing it. There are 3 types of remedies, however. The surest, merely most expensive and time consuming, method is to drain the pond and repair the dam. This could involve complete reconstruction, remarking the case (a good dam should accept a primal core of impervious soil extending from the waterline to below the lesser of the pond), or only compacting the existing structure with a sheepsfoot roller. Less plush, only all the same requiring pond drainage, is the awarding of dispersants or a clay blanket to the dry swimming bottom. (Dispersants are chemicals that break downward the bottom soil into tiny particles that volition plug any seepage points when the pond is refilled. The near common one is plain old sodium chloride.) Finally, the simplest but to the lowest degree certain way to seal a leaky pond, and peradventure the method yous're subsequently, is to add bentonite clay to the h2o.

Bentonite is technically described equally a "hydrous silicate of sodium composed chiefly of montmorillonite." It'due south the montmorillonite that counts, as this blazon of dirt has the ability to absorb several times its ain weight in h2o, swelling to every bit much as 20 times its original book! Consult an agricultural supply store for your closest source of the fabric. The clay isn't expensive, but you may need a lot of it, and freight costs tin can be prohibitive if it isn't bachelor nearby.

The by and large recommended dosage of bentonite is nearly one pound per square foot of pond surface, but as much equally twice that corporeality should be used on very porous soil or in extremely deep ponds. The best way to apply the clay without draining the pond is to mix it with h2o to form a slurry, which is then spread over the pond surface from a gunkhole. Because of the weight of the material and the labor involved, though, bentonite is commonly spread directly on the water in granular (non powdered) grade. In any instance, the grains will sink, and the force of the escaping water will draw the expanding material into the leaks, sealing them.

If you are sure that the merely leak is nigh the dam, you lot tin use a smaller corporeality of bentonite and do a spot awarding. (Note, however, that though you meet water escaping only at the base of operations of the dam, information technology'south still possible that the entire lesser layer is leaking and flowing toward the dam.) Small, well-localized seepage points can also be sealed with cinders passed through a i inch screen.

At that place are ii other possibilities that should be mentioned. Since yous land that the trouble area is "at the base of the dam," I can't dominion out the likelihood that the pond is actually leaking along the drainpipe, a common occurrence. In this case, the only real solution is to drain the pond and reinstall the drainpipe, making sure to meaty the soil well and put in an antiseep collar which should help forbid leaking. Information technology may besides be that, if your pond is relatively new, it simply hasn't had enough time to seal itself naturally. Heavy stocking and fertilization volition hasten this process.

Obviously, this is very full general advice that may need to be adjusted for local soil atmospheric condition. For more than specific data, contact your local soil conservation service office.

— Beak McLarney, Ph. D. and founder of the New Academy Institute

Published on Jan 28, 2011

Ep. 128 Endangered and Unusual Poultry Breeds, Parts 1 and ii

Part ane In part ane of this 2-function episode of Mother Earth News and Friends, Jeannette Beranger of The Livestock Conservancy chats with us about four of her favorite endangered poultry breeds that are being conserved: the Malay, the Redcap, the Creve Coeur, and the White-faced Black Spanish. Role 2 In office ii of this […]

Nature's Best Hope: Book Review

It's of import to show the world nosotros tin can salvage the planet by planting native species that volition back up insects, birds, and other life forms.