possible pond leaks

by Michele
(Dayton, OH, USA)

Can you offer any troubleshooting advice about why it would be taking more than a week for the dampness around the edge of the pond to dry up. We are wondering if the liner has been compromised in some way leading to pond leaks. If the liner has been compromised, how can we go about repairing it?

Doug says - you'll know the liner has been "holed" if the water in the pond area goes down more than can be accounted for by evaporation. Here's the page on pond leaks

Other reasons might include some clay soils in the backfill or barriers under the soil layer - I don't know what the subsoil was when you excavated the pond.

Soil compaction might also contribute. When we dug our big pond on the farm, there was a clay layer down about 8 feet (we knew it was there from test holes we dug) so we excavated several feet of that - pushed back the edges of the pond and tamped the clay down on the sides and out from the edge a few feet to create a hard-clay barrier for this natural pond. There may be something like this compaction done during the construction - if not deliberately as we did - accidentally with all the construction or piles of rock there or even all the foot traffic as part of construction. Compacting the soil will indeed lead to water retention.

So if pond leaks aren't the problem, here are two other possibilities for this kind of water behavior in the soil. Hope this helps a bit.