Building Lake Corona

[bindian]

Tilling or discing bentonite is the preferred method. On spot leaks, you can just spread it over the water. My small pond had a dam leak under the deck. I removed some deck boards and spread it over the water where I think the leak was. It worked.

 

[jk96]

Installed the extra 20ft section on the outlet to the dam this afternoon. Will cap and use my trash pump to fill it tomorrow so I can siphon the water out of the pond. Should drain pretty quick with a 10" outlet provided everything is still connected.

 

[jk96]

Ran into a bit of a snag trying to get the pond to siphon. It wouldn't siphon so I knew I had a break. After capping and letting the water run into my T on top of the dam I finally found the break when it came to the surface. It pulled loose at the elbow on top of the dam on the backside. Not real sure what I did on this one. You could only see a couple of spots where the solvent welded. Most was not welded together at all. Probably pulled apart as the backside of the dam settled as I didn't worry about compacting this side much.

20241026_162807

I ended up letting the water run and with a little guidance with the shovel I let it do most of the work excavating the pipe so I could cut it in a few places and rerun it from the top down. Just no real way to reconnect without piecing it back together.

20241027_105359

Reattached and siphoned off the pond this afternoon. I was really happy to find out the pipe on the pond side was good.

Video - click to follow link to play
20241029_160326

We are supposed to get quite a bit of rain tomorrow through next Tuesday so probably wont get to start mucking anything out for awhile. I may have missed my window to get this wrapped up before winter sets in. With the cooler temps getting ready to hit it may be difficult getting things to dry up enough.

20241029_165219 by Jeremy Kovac, on Flickr

 

[EddieWalker]

20241029_165219 by Jeremy Kovac, on Flickr

Looking at this picture, it sure looks like there is a very defined line where the water fills up to, and then stops. If I was looking for a leak, I'd be all over that line!!!

Both of my ponds will drop several feet over Summer from evaporation. I'm down about 3 feet right now. I don't have a line where the water level remains for any period of time except when it's full. As it lowers, vegetation grows at the edge of the water and continues to grow and the water goes down. In other areas, nothing grows from the full water line on down, it's all dirt and it remains dirt so you know where the shoreline is when full.

On the pipe that failed, my guess is that you didn't hold it together for several minutes after sliding it together. The bigger the fitting, the more it want's to slide apart after gluing it together. The bigger the pipe, the more this happens.

 

[ponytug]

@jk96 just a thought, but given the lay of the land around the pond, it seems like there would be the possibility of enlarging the drainage a bit by having some low slope swales capturing some run off on the slopes above the dam, but downstream of the dam face.

I think that @EddieWalker makes a great point about the defined line and being a good place to focus the bentonite application (+/-).

All the best,

Peter

 

[oosik]

Over the 40+ years out here I've tried to establish some form of depth marking system on my lake. The winter ice will remove ANYTHING that is placed in the water. I tried painting a vertical band on the rock cliffs. The ice removes that after two or three years.

What has worked and remained for over fifteen years now. Took a rock chisel and cut notches in the cliffs vertical rock face. One notch every three inches - vertically. Year round my lake will vary 10 inches.

The beavers work hard - year round - to reduce that amount of variance.

 

[jk96]

Looking at this picture, it sure looks like there is a very defined line where the water fills up to, and then stops. If I was looking for a leak, I'd be all over that line!!!

Both of my ponds will drop several feet over Summer from evaporation. I'm down about 3 feet right now. I don't have a line where the water level remains for any period of time except when it's full. As it lowers, vegetation grows at the edge of the water and continues to grow and the water goes down. In other areas, nothing grows from the full water line on down, it's all dirt and it remains dirt so you know where the shoreline is when full.

On the pipe that failed, my guess is that you didn't hold it together for several minutes after sliding it together. The bigger the fitting, the more it want's to slide apart after gluing it together. The bigger the pipe, the more this happens.

Started mucking out the pond today before the rain started this afternoon. I may have found my problem, or at least one of them. While mucking I hit rock in the shallower flat area away from the dam so started digging a bit and found a pretty good size area of rock and sandy soil just under the clay. Its roughly a 25x40 area and there is very little clay cover. This could be the reason it's only filling so full. I think it's possible increased pressure as the pond fills may be accelerating the loss. I've going to have to dig as much of this area out as I can, will then probably cover in bentonite, then repack with good clay before doing another bentonite treatment along with the rest of the pond. This area would have been the bottom of the ravine before I started work.

20241030_144455

20241030_144451

 

[ponytug]

@jk96 congratulations! That's progress, and definitely falls into the can't hurt department.

Good luck!

All the best,

Peter

 

[ning]

Ran into a bit of a snag trying to get the pond to siphon. It wouldn't siphon so I knew I had a break. After capping and letting the water run into my T on top of the dam I finally found the break when it came to the surface. It pulled loose at the elbow on top of the dam on the backside. Not real sure what I did on this one. You could only see a couple of spots where the solvent welded. Most was not welded together at all. Probably pulled apart as the backside of the dam settled as I didn't worry about compacting this side much.

20241026_162807

I ended up letting the water run and with a little guidance with the shovel I let it do most of the work excavating the pipe so I could cut it in a few places and rerun it from the top down. Just no real way to reconnect without piecing it back together.

20241027_105359

Reattached and siphoned off the pond this afternoon. I was really happy to find out the pipe on the pond side was good.

Video - click to follow link to play
20241029_160326

We are supposed to get quite a bit of rain tomorrow through next Tuesday so probably wont get to start mucking anything out for awhile. I may have missed my window to get this wrapped up before winter sets in. With the cooler temps getting ready to hit it may be difficult getting things to dry up enough.

20241029_165219 by Jeremy Kovac, on Flickr

Depending on angles, you may be able to use a PVC compression coupling to put that together.

They'll actually hold pressure, and will work very well in a situation where you have essentially no pressure, though the section you're fixing does need to be mostly straight. I used one recently to fix a 2" line where a tree fell and dislodged/broke a coupling in the ground; in my case there was a bit of a bend in the pipe (it had been laid under tension in a bit of a curve) and when it popped it looked like it wanted a 11° elbow... I used a weed torch to slowly warm up the pipe so that I could gradually bend it to point mostly straight end then used the compression coupling.

In larger size they're not cheap, but could save a lot of digging.

 

[jk96]

Depending on angles, you may be able to use a PVC compression coupling to put that together.
View attachment 1712188
They'll actually hold pressure, and will work very well in a situation where you have essentially no pressure, though the section you're fixing does need to be mostly straight. I used one recently to fix a 2" line where a tree fell and dislodged/broke a coupling in the ground; in my case there was a bit of a bend in the pipe (it had been laid under tension in a bit of a curve) and when it popped it looked like it wanted a 11° elbow... I used a weed torch to slowly warm up the pipe so that I could gradually bend it to point mostly straight end then used the compression coupling.

In larger size they're not cheap, but could save a lot of digging.

Already fixed and pond drained. This was a 10" line.

 

[newbury]

With both my businesses currently tanking due to this virus I really needed some stress relief. Today I decided to start on what I'm calling Lake Corona. In all honesty it will be a very small pond, something to remember this crazy time years from now and to hunt over, but Corona pond just doesn't have the same ring to it. If it holds water maybe some day I'll get a dozer in here and really go to work but for now the track loader will have to do.

Day 1
I spent the first half of the day taking out trees and clearing top soil. Here's a before pic.

4 years, how many man hours?
And you find

Started mucking out the pond today before the rain started this afternoon. I may have found my problem, or at least one of them. While mucking I hit rock in the shallower flat area away from the dam so started digging a bit and found a pretty good size area of rock and sandy soil just under the clay. Its roughly a 25x40 area and there is very little clay cover. This could be the reason it's only filling so full. I think it's possible increased pressure as the pond fills may be accelerating the loss. I've going to have to dig as much of this area out as I can, will then probably cover in bentonite, then repack with good clay before doing another bentonite treatment along with the rest of the pond. This area would have been the bottom of the ravine before I started work.

20241030_144455

20241030_144451

Did you study the geology of the area?
Do any soil cores?
You could have "lenses" of rock and sand forming drains for your pond.

 

[bindian]

Glad you found that gremlin. Can't believe you didn't find it when digging the basin.

 

[dodge man]

I’m a retired land surveyor and worked for a civil engineering firm. We did surveying and engineering on some lakes. You start getting into soil borings, surveying, engineering and permits you get into some serious money.

 

[jk96]

4 years, how many man hours?
And you find


Did you study the geology of the area?
Do any soil cores?
You could have "lenses" of rock and sand forming drains for your pond.

I dug it during covid and haven't done anything with it since then until recently. This has not been a 4 year project. It filled halfway and then life returned to normal. I'm just now getting back around to trying to get it to fill the rest of the way. I never tracked hours on the machine.

 

[jk96]

Glad you found that gremlin. Can't believe you didn't find it when digging the basin.

I started to see a few signs of rock and stopped digging. Didnt realize how widespread it was and how close to the surface until today mucking it out.

 

[bindian]

I'd dig it all out or seal it good with 6-12 inches of red clay.

 

[jk96]

I'd dig it all out or seal it good with 6-12 inches of red clay.

I'm going to dig as much of it out as I can unless I get into solid ledge then will backfill and compact with clay. Heavy thunderstorms here at the moment and then more rain Sat, Sun, Mon so on hold for awhile.

 

[EddieWalker]

Sure looks like you found the problem with all that rock. It makes me wonder what the path is that the water takes when it gets to the rock, but I know that's just about impossible to figure out.

When I hit sand while building my pond, I dug down at least two feet in every direction to make sure there wasn't any more sand. My fear for the longest time was that there was another pocket of sand just below the clay that I never found. Once I had that area dug out, I filled it with my best red clay in lifts of about six inches, until it was 2 feet thick.

Have you ordered the bentonite already? With what you've discovered, and the quality of your clay, I don't think you need bentonite.

 

[jk96]

Sure looks like you found the problem with all that rock. It makes me wonder what the path is that the water takes when it gets to the rock, but I know that's just about impossible to figure out.

When I hit sand while building my pond, I dug down at least two feet in every direction to make sure there wasn't any more sand. My fear for the longest time was that there was another pocket of sand just below the clay that I never found. Once I had that area dug out, I filled it with my best red clay in lifts of about six inches, until it was 2 feet thick.

Have you ordered the bentonite already? With what you've discovered, and the quality of your clay, I don't think you need bentonite.

No I put the bentonite on hold. I wasn't confident with the late season that I could get it done before winter set in and didn't want to store it. I also felt it would probably be best to make sure soil is stable around the pond that I cleared. Don't won't to spend a lot of time for it to just silt in a bunch while filling. If I can get to it this fall I'll tackle the rock area I found then see what happens in the spring before doing bentonite. Last nights rain should give me a good idea of soil stability. It came down hard and fast for awhile. I'll head back when I have some light to take a look.

 

[jk96]

Started round 2. Winter is finally behind us here I think and ground is drying out fairly fast now. Spent some time yesterday morning and then a lot of today and got the soil mucked out. I've dug down to solid ledge and removed a ton of sandy soil and rock. All of the spoils have been taken to the back side of the dam. I'll grade it out after it dries.

Last fall when I siphoned the water out water was pulling from a hole in the dam. I assumed the end of the tube was under silt. Today in mucking out the pond I found the end of the drain lower and almost silted over which means I have a break in the pipe that will need fixed. Probably same problem I had on the backside in not keeping pressure long enough while the glue set.

After most of the muck out. The entire center area of the pond is solid limestone now. Will start next covering everything in about 12" of clay.

I'm planning to bring the clay from the hillside where my loader is sitting in this pic. Most of the topsoil is already stripped so just a matter of pushing downhill, spreading, and compacting. Will cover first, compact, spread and till in bentonite, then compact one final time. Hoping to spend a couple of hours tomorrow pushing dirt. I traded in my Case TV450B last month for the bigger TV620B and this machine can move a lot of dirt for a CTL. I should be able to make pretty quick work of getting the clay moved.