Construction begins August 19th with Duane unloading his equipment from the trailer. Excitement is high. There still are alot of things uncertain about the construction. Will the double layer 6 mil. plastic be sufficient?

 

As the hole in the earth grows construction continues at the input end of the pond. An underground pipe feeding the pond is created and reinforced with cement. We later found out that deep well water often contains Hydrogen Sulfide which causes the pond to become acidic. The water must be exposed to the surface where oxygen can be absorbed and hydrogen sulfide gas can escape. We ended up killing over a thousand Brook Trout because of this faulty design.

 

Nearing completion you can see the drainage pipe sticking out of the dike. The depth of the pond is about 10 feet at this point. We expect the finished pond depth to be around 8 feet.

 

Certain sections of the property have soil that will not hold water. To solve this problem we lined the bottom of the pond with two layers of 6 mil plastic. To the left you can see Larry Esser and Jeremy Rickert unrolling the 100 foot roll of plastic.

 

With most of the plastic in place and being held down by rocks and an old tire, Pat Esser removes the creases and folds in the plastic as much as possible. The next step was to have the bulldozer put back two feet of dirt on top of the plastic.

 

Twelve days from the start of the project Turtle Pond begins to fill for the first time ever. You can still see sections of the plastic exposed above the dirt but it is cut out and removed in the following weeks as the pond raises to its final level.