Removing pond silt

[mtb345]

need some ideas on how to remove silt from a 10 acre pond that is 80% full to the top the land is flat no wet land around looking for the best way to attack this and what size machine should i use: i have my own ideas but i like to hear others

 

[gasfield315c]

a big longreach and lizzard trucks

 

[XxTrasHxX]

Winter time is best when every thing is frozen , couple of rock trucks with gates and heated boxes and as gasfield315c said A big longreach with nice set of sharp teeth for cutting through the frost / frozen stuff.

 

[heavylift]

pond dredge.... just google there are lots of companies

i did have a link to one that had small dredges.. but it must have been lost

 

[ScottAR]

look up Dirtman2007's or zhkent's posts. they do this sort of thing
fairly often. I expect more than one method will be used depending
on the exact area of the pond/lake.

10 acres x ft deep is a lot of mud. I hope you have a large settling
area.

 

[watglen]

That much silt will take a decade dry out. I know that from experience.

I wonder if you could pump that crud?

 

[dynahoescott]

A couple wide guage light dozers or crawler loaders pushing up to a large hoe with a big bucket loading tandems or euc`s. Years ago we did that type of operation in hudson county (new jersey) park lake. we used a 7400 link belt hoe(me) and a wide gauge d-3 a wide gauge d-6 a normal d-8 and 2 977l`s loading and pushing.:drinkup

 

[swampdog]

need some ideas on how to remove silt from a 10 acre pond that is 80% full to the top the land is flat no wet land around looking for the best way to attack this and what size machine should i use: i have my own ideas but i like to hear others

Is it 80% full of silt, or 80% full of water?

That's a big pond!! A lot depends on your budget. With enough money, almost anything is possible.

Draining/pumping out the water might work best and may be the cheapest option in the long run. Once it is drained, get in there with excavators and vehicles to haul the silt away. If traction is not good, tracked vehicles like Morookas might work for the hauling. However, depending on your soil conditions, the base may never dry well enough to work in.

Another option is to use a dragline or skyline system. The skyline system uses a movable anchor point on the far shore of the pond. With that you could get by without draining the water.

We deepened one end of an existing pond last summer, taking out about 20,000 yards of material. The pond had a blue clay base that never would have dried enough to work in. So we built a dam/causeway across the pond using fill and gravel and then pumped the water from one side of the dam to the other. We then used an excavator to dig with (working from the shore and the causeway) and a 4 yd loader to haul the material away. We could have dug it without pumping the water, but we could do a much neater job if able to see the bottom as we worked. Then we let the water back in and pulled the causeway out.

 

[mtb345]

pond silt

thanks for the ideas right now because of the budget its roughly one acre by 4 feet deep and then install two 6in siphon pipes.80% full of silt keep them ideas comming

 

[joispoi]

Are you saying that the silt layer is 4 feet deep, or that the pond depth is 4 ft deep which at 80% full would mean about 38-40 inches of silt?

If you were still looking at bailing out 10 acres and it was deeper, I'd say gps, depthfinder and a barge for the hoe and another barge for the spoil. Have another hoe on shore and load it out.

 

[JS580SL]

My dad did one for an Aggregate quarry bout 10 years back. Hitachi EX330 with a normal long stick did the whole job. Think he had some help from some end dump cats and a 988 at times.

 

[tootalltimmy]

A lot would depend on the time needed to complete. The more iron, the faster it would go. How fast do you want to get it done? What is the budget?

 

[tripper_174]

I'm with xxTrashxx. Frozen, it's like a day off. Done it that way cleaning out delta area into lakes and sewage lagoons. Simple and safe. Of course it helps to live in Manitoba...

 

[wnydirtguy]

I am all for a long reach excavator, lpg dozer, a couple of articulating trucks, and some good water pumps. but with out knowing the site and what is available its just an idea.

 

[Dirtman2007]

Get you a couple regular excavators and some mud mats to put them on. Thats just a everyday job for us.

 

[Drag.liner]

Depending on the shape, a dragline with an operator who can cast the bucket out. Then 3 or 4 tandem axle haul trucks. will move a lot of dirt.

 

[sultan]

Depending on the shape, a dragline with an operator who can cast the bucket out. Then 3 or 4 tandem axle haul trucks. will move a lot of dirt.

For such a job, I agree that a dragline will be very efficient and economical. The only problem is what would you do with the dragline after you've finished this job. It's a rather specialized and limited utility item, compared to a normal hydraulic excavator.

I've heard good things about Liebherr's draglines: http://www.liebherr.com/cr/en/products_cr.asp?menuID=106142!1396-0

P.S. - or you can find a cheap old dragline like a Linkbelt for much less than the cost of the job but take your time digging...

 

[swampdog]

A few years ago I wanted to find a dragline but couldn't find anything suitable. Most of the older machines that one can actually move, without disassembling them, are smaller and in rough condition.

Most have quite a limited reach, which means that they won't work well for larger ponds. The ones around here were used mainly for digging dugouts for watering cattle, so they did not have all that much reach.

Finding someone who can run and maintain an old dragline is another challenge. I'd love to see one work with a good operator at the contols.