Solutions or ' tools ' for a leaking dam .

[Charles in Aus.]

My dam ( Australian generic term for a pond water storage ) leaks badly . It never fills to the top . The wall seems to be the culprit , primarily of rock and clay tamped down by the huge excavator that dug the hole .
There are powder type products that claim to work , but fearsomely expensive .

So suggestions as to what this powder might be or a mechanical method that might work please?

If it was the base leaking and not the wall, I'd just pen some cows in it with a bale or two when the water was low and have them pug the clay tight .

 

[Gambles]

There have been some mixed results in my area with the pond owner throwing a bunch of vermiculite ( I believe that’s what it’s called) into the water. The stuff from decades ago had asbestos in it. The modern stuff supposedly doesn’t. When I say mixed results, I’d say 90% of the pond owners saw no results, especially when the pond has lots of rock. Other than that, except for a complete drainage and rework, nothing else has worked in my area.

 

[560Dennis]

I like the clay idea. Do you have blue clay possibly? They used clay that to seal all the lakes at Disney land in Anaheim Ca.

 

[Fawteen]

I have heard of using Bentonite (a powdered clay) but have no direct experience.

 

[sms]

I have heard of using Bentonite (a powdered clay) but have no direct experience.

Bentonite is a clay that expands when it gets wet. Our oldest is a civil and environmental engineer on Colorados Western slope. He has seen houses built on bentonite that due to poor drainage installation the house foundation has been lifted when rain water penetrated to the bentonite substrate.
I have seen it used on ponds mainly around overflow or drain pipes to stop leakage.

 

[504]

I have heard of dumping a couple of hundred pounds of hydrated lime over the place you think is leaking. It will flow into the leak and swell up.

 

[Red Dave]

Before I retired, as part of my job at a hydroelectric Dam, I did experiments with sealants to stop head gates and spillway gates from leaking at the seals. Now, keep in mind that this was sealing mechanical seals, not leaks in an earthen Dam. I found that ashes from a coal fired generating plant worked very well as did the coal ashes from coal fired boilers. You need the variety of sizes in the material, including the fines to get into the smallest voids to get effective sealing. Whether your environmental regulations would allow you to use coal ash is a big question. Ours allowed it back in the 1920's & 30's, but modern regulations required a change.

I had some success using crushed limestone. I needed to find an alternative to the coal ash because of environmental regulations. A mix that has everything from about an inch diameter down to the smallest fines worked best for us. Clean stone didn't work for us. Bentonite didn't work for us.

Whether any of that translates to your application is the question and that is something I don't know.

 

[RedMF40]

How big is your pond? Just thinking outside the box, but I use reclaimed vinyl pool covers to keep the weather off my firewood. Incredibly thick and sturdy vinyl. If your pond is small enough you could line the bottom and sides with this material, preferably all one piece. Should be free if people have swimming pools in your part of the world. The pool companies normally give the retired covers away in my area.

 

[trackrat]

I have been an excavation contractor for many years, have used everything under the sun trying to seal leaking ponds. Bentonite never worked for me at all and was very expensive, using clay works but you have to use a lot of it feeding cows in the pond works as well as anything I have used. But this is in my area in your area it might be different

 

[trackrat]

How big is your pond? Just thinking outside the box, but I use reclaimed vinyl pool covers to keep the weather off my firewood. Incredibly thick and sturdy vinyl. If your pond is small enough you could line the bottom and sides with this material, preferably all one piece. Should be free if people have swimming pools in your part of the world. The pool companies normally give the retired covers away in my area.

The only problem with that is if you use the pond for cattle water they will destroy the liner

 

[PJH]

My dam ( Australian generic term for a pond water storage ) leaks badly . It never fills to the top . The wall seems to be the culprit , primarily of rock and clay tamped down by the huge excavator that dug the hole .
There are powder type products that claim to work , but fearsomely expensive .

So suggestions as to what this powder might be or a mechanical method that might work please?

If it was the base leaking and not the wall, I'd just pen some cows in it with a bale or two when the water was low and have them pug the clay tight .

Bridge contractors drive sheet piling in a box configuration [cofferdam] for water surrounded pier construction. Then they pump the water out of the box to allow work on the river bed. The sheet piling joints will leak like a sieve, squirting water into the hole from every direction. The workers pour kitty litter over the outside top of the cofferdam and the leaks quickly stop. You still have to run pumps, but it is amazing how the kitty litter works to stop the leaks. I think that kitty litter, oil dry and bentonite might be the same material, but different coarseness. The Bentonite used in wine making is powder fine.

 

[ss55]

My dam ( Australian generic term for a pond water storage ) leaks badly . It never fills to the top . The wall seems to be the culprit , primarily of rock and clay tamped down by the huge excavator that dug the hole .
There are powder type products that claim to work , but fearsomely expensive .

So suggestions as to what this powder might be or a mechanical method that might work please?

If it was the base leaking and not the wall, I'd just pen some cows in it with a bale or two when the water was low and have them pug the clay tight .

Is this an old structure, new construction that is not preforming to the contracted engineering specifications, or a Do-It-Yourself project that is disappointing? If it is older the budget to build it may have been limited so much that the structure was never intended to be water tight.

Is the leakage severe enough that there is danger of a blowout or collapse?

 

[showcrop]

The Susquehanna river in Scranton PA once developed a leak into the coal mines below. They tried various things to plug it over a number of days, and were finally successful when they made a diversion in the RR track beside the river, and pushed a number of railroad boxcars into the whirlpool.

 

[Texasmark]

My dam ( Australian generic term for a pond water storage ) leaks badly . It never fills to the top . The wall seems to be the culprit , primarily of rock and clay tamped down by the huge excavator that dug the hole .
There are powder type products that claim to work , but fearsomely expensive .

So suggestions as to what this powder might be or a mechanical method that might work please?

If it was the base leaking and not the wall, I'd just pen some cows in it with a bale or two when the water was low and have them pug the clay tight .

I'm in Backland Clay (the soil is black and its clay is like a rock when dry). Upon having ponds formed by making a clay soil perimeter on the low side of a hill, I find that seepage is imminent. What I did discover was that after a few years, pond weeds/vegetation grows and then seasonally dies and sinks to the bottom. After a few years, enough veggie matter seals up the cracks and stops the seepage......it takes a few years but it's essentially free....other than some seed you might want to buy to build up the growing contents so you don't have to wait so long to stop the seepage.

 

[Ed Fulton]

Talk to a water well driller (or oil well driller). They will be familiar with the use of bentonite and also lost-circulation material (LCM). The least expensive LCM that I can think of is regular sawdust from a sawmill. If bentonite cannot seal the flow, mix some sawdust with the bentonite and try again. Screen the sawdust to remove any large pieces of wood. You want the sawdust to go into the leakage path.

 

[showcrop]

Talk to a water well driller (or oil well driller). They will be familiar with the use of bentonite and also lost-circulation material (LCM). The least expensive LCM that I can think of is regular sawdust from a sawmill. If bentonite cannot seal the flow, mix some sawdust with the bentonite and try again. Screen the sawdust to remove any large pieces of wood. You want the sawdust to go into the leakage path.

I could see sawdust working for an oil well, but it may be a challenge to make sawdust go below water.

 

[ss55]

I could see sawdust working for an oil well, but it may be a challenge to make sawdust go below water.

Sawdust of a dense wood that does not float might sink. I do not know what is available on the OP's continent.

 

[1948CaseVAI]

They sell bags of bentonite just for that as well as for plugging old wells, sealing the sides of new wells etc.

 

[EFV]

Sounds like this pond needs a core trench installed.

 

[BillinCentralMO]

There have been some mixed results in my area with the pond owner throwing a bunch of vermiculite ( I believe that’s what it’s called) into the water. The stuff from decades ago had asbestos in it. The modern stuff supposedly doesn’t. When I say mixed results, I’d say 90% of the pond owners saw no results, especially when the pond has lots of rock. Other than that, except for a complete drainage and rework, nothing else has worked in my area.

It is bentonite clay. Vermiculite is fluffy stuff to pad above ground swimming pools.