Ponds and Water Gardens - Natural pond dried up
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Vindes
11-21-07, 09:05 PM
We had what I'll call a natural pond in our front yard for the past nine or so years. It was ~35x35 feet, and was actually a retention/detention pond for storm water. It was usually less than a foot deep, but after a storm would get to maybe a bit over a foot before it would overrun down a slight grade into the woods. Between rains the water level would fall very very slowly and only dry out extremely rarely. (About once every several years.)
The inlet pipe ended up shifting somehow, and where it connected to the next section of pipe upstream the ground eroded and formed an unsafe hole, so the city came out and re-set the pipe and corrected the problem.
Unfortunately they also decided to deepen the pond by ~8 inches to increase retention capacity, and just dug out the bottom. In the process I noticed they dug out a lot of river stone that was apparently just under the layer of mud at the bottom.
So now the problem - there is no longer any semblance of a pond. Even after prolonged hard rainfall, water never accumulates. At the peak of a hard storm an inch or two may build up, but it seeps into the ground extremely rapidly as soon as the rain lightens up.
My questions are what happened, and how can we get it back the way it was? Is it possible that the riverstone at the bottom was limiting the seep into the ground that much? Is it matter of having enough silt and sediment build up at the bottom that will somehow reduce ground seep?
We've been looking at a dry mud bed for the last several months that is starting to grow over with grass and weeds. Is there any way to get our retention pond back without dropping in a liner? It's a county easement, so not sure we could put in a liner even if we wanted to.
The inlet pipe ended up shifting somehow, and where it connected to the next section of pipe upstream the ground eroded and formed an unsafe hole, so the city came out and re-set the pipe and corrected the problem.
Unfortunately they also decided to deepen the pond by ~8 inches to increase retention capacity, and just dug out the bottom. In the process I noticed they dug out a lot of river stone that was apparently just under the layer of mud at the bottom.
So now the problem - there is no longer any semblance of a pond. Even after prolonged hard rainfall, water never accumulates. At the peak of a hard storm an inch or two may build up, but it seeps into the ground extremely rapidly as soon as the rain lightens up.
My questions are what happened, and how can we get it back the way it was? Is it possible that the riverstone at the bottom was limiting the seep into the ground that much? Is it matter of having enough silt and sediment build up at the bottom that will somehow reduce ground seep?
We've been looking at a dry mud bed for the last several months that is starting to grow over with grass and weeds. Is there any way to get our retention pond back without dropping in a liner? It's a county easement, so not sure we could put in a liner even if we wanted to.
Integrator97
11-22-07, 09:54 PM
The stone was definitely not holding the water in. It's porous and used to promote drainage. More likely on top of the stone was a layer of clay, which they dug out. This would hold the water. Look back a bit in this section of the forum, and there will be some information on restoring ponds, and links for more information. I believe adding bentonite (not sure if that's correct spelling) can seal a pond that leaks, but not sure if it will help in your situation.