Help! Farm Pond is Leaking!

[bigoak]

Has anyone actually been able to seal a leaking pond dam? If so what did you do?

[torch]

Find a little Swedish boy and get him to stick his finger in the hole. The only thing I know you can do is haul dirt in and reinforce it.

[Johnny Hall]

I heard chicken manure would do the trick. I know threee different people who have done it and their pond stopped leaking. Throw some in the water and on the back side.

[msbigdawg1234]

Get ya soem drillers mud (Benanite sp?) Dig down find your leak por it down around the hole to block and fill back in. I stopped one a couple of mths ago for a fellow.

[dedux]

Where's the damn beavers when you need 'um?

Bentonite will git 'er done.

[master guide]

drillersmud-barite.

[woundedduck]

stick a cork in it!

[Double R 2]

How old is the pond and what condition is the dam? Why is it leaking - are there trees, etc., beavers or nutria rats involved?

[bigoak]

The pond is about 10 years old and it has leaked since it was built. There are no trees on the dam. There are no beavers or nutria rats. We cannot find where it is seeping out at.

[South Woods]

If it has leaked since being built it probably was not cored right. I run into them like that all the time. The only way I have been able to fix one in this condition is to dig a trench all the way across the dam and put a core in it.

Hope I am wrong on the core. Check with whoever built it, if possible, i have run into guys who dont think you need to core one. He may not have.

Be careful with chicken litter, very much will kill your fish.

[Grommet]

If a core ditch was not dug the drilling mud will not help. Sorry.

[Swamp Dawg]

I though the old man was crazy, but I have seen him personally do both of these teniques:
1) I have seen him weight a peice of dynimite down so would sink with long h20 proof fuse and light and then throw way out in middle so that when went off would shake any loose ground (this also caused us to have hell of a fish fry that night as well)- glad it was a private pond.
***
also the old redneck way is to section off the part of dam with fence and put hogs in for a while, something about the size of hoofs and weight of pigs that will compact dirt- did stop seaping on a 12 acre lake that neighbor owned.
****
just my 2 cents .

[SilverBack]

There is a place in aberdeen ms that sells bentonite(sp) that is used just for leaking ponds.

[Skip OK]

Bentonite is a clay product which will swell when hydrated and when fully swollen, the clay particles look kind of like leaves or piece of paper. It will seal the bottom of a pond very well

Barite is another name for Barium Sulfate it is used as a weighting material in drilling muc but won't seal worth a darn.