Pond Reconstruction by J&R Bryant

This page is pretty much an advertisement for John Bryant and his crew from J & R Bryant Properties, Inc. in Twin City, GA.  They're the folks that did the land clearing for the new shop, as well as provided us with the work you're about to read about.  I realize this site has a global audience, but if you happen to need land clearing, demolition, pond repair or pond building services in Georgia, I can't recommend this company highly enough.  They're honest, dependable and fair.  They took the time to educate us about our pond and the issues we faced, making sure we were comfortable at every step.  Give John a call at 478-237-6630.  On to the story...

When we bought our new home in the country, one of the features we really liked was the pond on the property.  I thought "cool, I can fish without even having to leave home". 

This is how the pond looked when we first bought the house.  As you can see, the water level was really low. The previous owner explained that a few good rains would fill it up, but he had considered putting in a separate well to keep it filled.  That should have been a red flag to me, but I'm a city boy and know absolutely nothing about ponds.  Well, I got a really good lesson from John and his crew.

Together, we walked the pond perimeter and determined that the pond was leaking from directly behind the spillway pipe, (the green pipe on the left in the picture above). They suspected that there wasn't an anti-seep collar (basically a gasket) installed on the pipe.  The only way to find this out was to dig the pipe out and check.  Since we wanted the pond filled, and the equipment and expertise were here already, we gave them the go-ahead.

Well, when they started digging to uncover the pipe, our hopes were high since the clay and soil around the pipe was soaking wet, indicating that this was indeed the source of the leak.  (Or so we thought and hoped...)  They kept digging and found what they expected, there was no 'gasket' on the pipe.  They also found the next surprise.  There are bell shaped couplings at the end of the sections of pipe, and they need to be fitted together so that the water running through the pipe won't have a tendency to force the pipe sections apart. (You can see the couplings facing the wrong way in the second picture below.)  The pipe had been installed backwards and each time the pond filled and overflowed through the spillway, the pipe sections were getting pushed further and further apart!  That alone wasn't too big a deal, since they had to remove the pipe anyway to install the new 'gasket'.  They simply cut off the coupling from the end of the first section, cemented on a connector and reversed the sections that followed. Problem solved. Home free with a pond that was going to hold water, right?

Nope, no such luck.  As I said, when they were digging out the pipe, they noticed that the clay/soil around it was soaking wet, and the pond was nowhere near full enough to be overflowing through the spillway.  There had to be something else causing this wetness. 

John explained that a dam for a man-made pond has to be "cored" with compacted clay, or the pond wouldn't be able to hold water.  He asked if his crew could dig a small trench in the dam to examine the condition of the core.  Well, we discovered our dam wasn't cored correctly, if at all.  This was pretty easy to see, since their trenching uncovered tree stumps, logs and other debris where there should have been a clay core.  Water was literally pouring out of the pond over and through this debris in the dam!

We faced yet another decision.  Do we call it quits and face a pond that would never hold water properly, or do we bite the bullet and have the crew rebuild and core the dam?  Have a look and you'll see what our decision was:

Since there was soil and debris where there should have been a core, we needed a lot of clay.  Luckily we had all they needed readily available on the opposite bank of the pond, but it had to be dug up and moved to the dam side.  More heavy equipment was brought in.  A large tractor pulling a dirt pan moved literally tons of clay, bringing it over to the dam where an excavator was digging a trench down the center of the dam.  As the clay arrived, the excavator would move it into place and compact it.  This went on for an entire day, and made quite a mess, but it provided us with an unexpected benefit.  Thanks to all the clay they had to move, our pond is now about 25% larger than it was.

With the dam re-cored, and the mess leveled out, they shot the site to determine where the water level would be based on the height of the spillway.  They did a great job setting the level of the new dam and didn't have to make any adjustments.  The second picture below was only a week and a half after they completed the work.  We had a good heavy rain and as you can see the pond level rose quite a bit.  It even filled in the new hole that was created when they removed all that clay.

It appears our time and investment wasn't wasted.  It's only been a couple of weeks, but our pond is starting to look pretty awesome, and it's holding water just like it should!  Here are before and after pictures, shot from about the same spot.  Hard to imagine that it's the same pond.  Thanks John!!!

The picture below is a progress shot, taken Feb 01,2006  Less than a foot to go and the water will be at the spillway.  What a beautiful thing for us to see...

Now it's off the Georgia DNR to have the water tested and to order the catfish and bass to stock the pond.  (There are hundreds of brim already in the pond for the new fish to feed on...)