Located in South Central Kansas, in the early stages of planning some improvements for one of our ponds. The pond in question is just over an acre. Max depth when full is about 6-8 feet. 3:1 slope, soil has some clay, is still a little wet right now. Most of our ponds are relatively dry right now, and we'd like to remove 4-8 feet of material (most of it turns to muck when full) to improve the pond. The pond already has a dam so the plan is to just dump the material on the back side of it. Looking at several options, including just contracting the work. If we were to do it ourselves, thinking either: 1 20-50ish ton excavator, 2-3 dump trucks, either on-road or ADT 1 20-50ish ton excavator, 1 loader Max distance a dump truck would have to travel (loading on opposite side of the pond) is about 0.2 miles back around it, as the dam blocks the other route. An ADT could probably just skirt the edge, so about 400 ft to dump for that. I calculated cycle times, figuring about 8500 yd^3 needs to be excavated at 3 yd^3 per scoop with a larger excavator, about 3000 scoops, with about 12 yards per dump truck (more with ADT). 1:20ish to fill a truck, 5-6 minutes to dump (at 5 mph), 250 loads total, so about 24-28 hours all in. I know there's not a ton of information, but generally how accurate are these numbers? Still need to get out with the tractor and dig down to get a good idea of the soil composition. I assume it would need clay packed in (sheeps foot roller too then?) afterwards. Any other recommendations on equipment? Thanks!
So if I’m reading correctly you are wanting to dredge out the existing pond, cleaning out the silt/muck and maybe adding some depth? If this is the case I the way we do it is much different than what you are proposing. The two main pieces of equipment you’ll need are a hoe and a dozer, preferably LGP. 1. Trench through the dam to drain the pond, trench needs to be wide enough to get the dozer through and to the full depth of the pond. As soon as all the water has drained you begin the dredging work. 2. Start at the top of the pond pushing the muck inward and towards the cut in the dam. You need to make each push more or less to the depth of the original clay bottom so the dozer stays on relatively firm and dry ground. Continue down the sides of the pond pushing towards the center, the hydraulic pressure of the wet muck and any remaining water will cause it to flow out the trench in the dam. You can also use the excavator to help paw the muck through the trench. 3. Clean up and shape the bottom of the pond with good clay, push remaining muck through slot in dam, then re-core and compact that section of dam. 4. Clean up the muck below the dam, usually we’ll just get it to the side enough that it doesn’t interfere with water flowing out the stand pipe or the emergency spillway then leave it to dry up (can take many months). Later once its dry you can spread it out and use it for whatever. Sometimes it is rich topsoil like material, other times it is sandy and mostly silt, just depends on why the pond filled in. If you aren’t brave enough to try the above mentioned method, the less risky version is to drain the pond by cutting the dam and let it sit for a up to a year to dry up. Then you’re mostly working with dry material and can move it with a dozer or hoe/trucks. There is still a risk of burying equipment, especially if there are any springs, but it is less. My last choice would be to dig all that out with a hoe when it is still wet, it’s doable especially with a long reach excavator but it makes a terrible mess and production is slow. Good luck with your project, keep us updated with plenty of pics.
Look at some of Shimmy's posts on here, he does a bit of that type of work. It seems like more work than another pond in many cases, if it's a dammed up draw/gully type of dam instead of a dugout on the flat. If possible, I'd cut or bore a drain in the existing pond, and build another up or downstream from the original. Let it dry several dry years, then clean and repair it when it's fit.
I think these two YouTube videos pretty much show the method that MG84 was describing to you. I watched them before myself and found them pretty interesting.
Yes that is very similar to how we do it. On smaller ponds it is by far the fastest method I’ve found, in and out in a couple days. That being said, it’s probably not a job for a first time dozer operator.
Lol yeah I was thinking it could go bad pretty quickly if you don’t have a good feel for when the dozer is starting to get into a soft spot.
Often the bottom of the pond is good solid clay and a firm footing. Where you get into trouble is if you find a spring or some other hole/ditch/drop-off in the bottom of the pond. You’re going along good and the next thing you know your on top of pudding. With an LGP dozer you don’t always sink, but once the tracks get balled up with mud your done. Better to just stop struggling and pull it out with the hoe before you bury it to china lol.
Here’s one we did a few years ago with a 950 loader and a D6R. It had about 5 ft of silt with a solid clay bottom.. time from first pic until we started the job was 3wks, so still very wet. After carrying it out on the high side with the loader the dozer was able to push it on a slight down slope to stockpile. The key here was to cut a suitable ramp and keeping it as dry as possible.
Man that's scary to think about making the mistake of getting in on top of that and sinking a dozer into 5 feet of that stuff. Yikes. Great job there.
" not for a first time dozer operator" LOL! Makes for the great pictures and videos on youtube. Yesterday I de-mucked the creek I was bridging over with our standard reach 35. I could not reach the big center mat of grass and that was OK. I told my friend the first rule of working alone is don't get hurt, and the second one is don't get stuck. I ran out on my bucket till the tails were coming off the hard bank, then set the blade and down I went. I kept the tracks clean. There is a hard bottom of gravel about 18" down but the mini does not have enough freeboard for that. Ironically there is a big pile of timbers there to spare and I could thumb my way out there and back, but that will be for next time in 5 years.
Heck I got my John Deere tractor stuck the other week when I was mowing in the back yard by our pond. I just wanted to try to knock down some high weeds in the swampy area where some springs feed the pond. I thought ahh no problem I'll just back the mower up in there and won't even get the back tires on the soft stuff. Needless to say by the time I was done getting stuck and trying to get un-stuck, I couldn't even pull it out with the 4wd backhoe. Thank goodness we have a dozer or I would have been doing a lot of digging to get it out.
Is the 8500 CY a bank measurement or swelled?