Need Help!

I don't know but will follow this with interest. (Eeeeek, Brooke!)

Brooke, first I'm sorry about the flooding. I hope the cleanup help arrives soon and no more rains come your way.

re the pond -- are you talking about a natural pond or an a man made pond? How large is it? If you are able to drain it (does it have solid sides and bottom?) you could clean it with a dilute solution of bleach (5%, or 1 part household bleach to 4 parts water) let it sit for at least an hour, then rinse it well, drain out the rinse water and then refill the pond. If it's a large natural area (I'm having a hard time imagining what you mean by the word 'pond') then I would leave it empty until a few cleansing rains come and wash it out. Let the rain water drain away before refilling the pond.

Brooke, I've been looking at various recommendations for using bleach solutions for sanitizing solid surfaces. It ranges from a low of 1 cup bleach to 4 gallons of water (regular household sanitizer) to the strength we used to neutralize pathogen viruses in the lab -- the 1 part bleach to 4 parts liquid I posted above. I can't find anything yet on decontaminating surfaces after flooding rains (I'll keep looking) but if you use a strong solution for decontamination then make sure you rinse it well before letting the dogs back into the pond.

Osso .......thank you for responding, anyhow. Hugs

JPB ....... It is a manmade pond. Not sure of the size, really. Bigger than a 1/4 acre but not sure if it would be a full 1/2 acre, either. Not huge, not small. I have never drained it before.

It did drop it's water level during the summer drought. So I took my 2nd well and turned it on and filled it back up. But I really have no idea what the bottom and sides down deep look like.

I'm just not sure how in the world I can make it safe again. Prior to this flood, the water in my pond was a pretty blue color. Very clear. I had some bass that would follow me around in the evenings. As soon as they would see me coming, they would swim real fast to the side of the pond and follow me as I walked around it. Waiting for me to toss em' food. Spoiled fish, they were! Now......I doubt they are there anymore. Last night I saw a snake shooting through the pond with his head out of the water. I had never seen a snake in there before.

I'm thinkin' my pond will probably never be the same again.

Thank you, JPB for your help.

ok, it's a body of water not a goldfish thingy on the side of your deck. That's different and you aren't looking at bleach as a solution.

I'll search around some more and see if I can find anything.

Is your house ok?

The sediment will settle as the pond goes back into its banks. I dont think Id pump it because youll just be drawing more water from around the pond and , unless you see oil slicks or suspect vast contamination from some "cleanup company" out there in Findlay. Id let er drop back.

If the pond was lined, was the liner strewn about?

Most manmade ponds fill with sediment naturally and have to be "mudcatted" every so often.I think that youll probably go through 2 or so years of high nutrient water which will allow you to clean out the lgae blooms and duckweed.

The original water, ws it from the water table or a spring? or just runnoff that was diverted into your pond. If its a high value spring then Id have some other suggestions.

Maybe someone can scare up Georgeob, hes a hydraulics engineer. with environmental experience

I found some info...

This one is specific to a fish hatchery, but it relates to post-flooding recovery.

. This sounds like an old sandstone quarry pond. The ponds with deep blue water usually have aluminum in em from the natural rock.

Thank you JPB and Farmerman.

JPB ....... my house is ok. I was scared though. The closer the water got.....the more I paced and kept checking on it. I really can't complain a great deal. I have about 5,000 in damages total. There are many people that lost everything. Yesterday... life flight landed on the east side of my yard (the side not affected by the flood). I thought maybe there was an accident close by. Here it was a guy that drove through high water just down the road from me. He didn't make it through. Anyhow, an ambulance loaded the man up and drove him to the waiting helicopter. They couldn't save him and he died. So, I really can't complain at all. The office I worked in is gone. On the bright side our files were stored on an online vault that backed em' up everyday at 3pm. So I can manage from home, till we can get things back up and runnin again. Which shouldn't be horribly long.


Farmerman ..... I honestly don't think there is a liner in the pond. The beach side is very sandy and the rest of it just has white rock all along the top sides and it flows down into the water. But the rock doesn't go all the way down. I can tell you from swimming in it that it just appears to be compacted soil. Kinda like clay? Maybe there's a liner under all that, though.

Since the pond was here when I bought the house, I'm not sure how it was filled. I do know that the 2nd well, has an underground pipe that feeds the pond in drought conditions, if you turn it on. I think the well was put in for the horses though, since it is clear out by the barn and the well that comes into the house is much much closer.

Thank You

Brooke--

At least you're safe.

I have no experience with ponds invaded by flood water, but I do have a few ideas for basic research.

If you're in an area where several people have ponds, talk to your local newspaper. They'll be trying to give coverage and advice to the area.

Talk to your insurance agent. I noticed on another thread that you had lightning damage. Perhaps (and only perhaps) the claims can be combined and you can get appliances replaced.

Talk to your county agricultural agent.

Ask your vet.

The aftermaths of flooding are incredibly sordid--but you're a survivor.

Hold your dominion.

In many states , the County Soil Conservation Districts have the responsibility for helping in erosion and sedimentation planning (of which ponds play an important role) call your county Soil Conservation Office. It should be listed under Dept Agriculture.

Hi Noddy.......Good to see you. I hope everything is going well! Thank you for your ideas. I will certainly send some feelers out this week. I know the pond is not safe. It smells like pig shi* out there actually! Raw sewage or something. It's hard to say what is in flood waters I guess. My propane tank got washed away with about 250 gals of fuel inside of it I have no idea where it ended up landing at! So I'm sure there are a lot of nasty things to contaminate it.

I will post a few pics later on this evening of where I live. As bad as the pics look, they aren't as bad as it ended up getting, as they were taken on Tuesday and the water crested on Wednesday.

Farmerman........awesome idea too! I never even thought of that!
Geesh, me!!

Thank you all very much!

Brooke--

I know the Biblical Deluge cleansed the earth, but floodwaters just aren't the quality (or the quantity) that they used to be.

Do you have cleanup in the house as well as the yard, or "just" the yard?

Hold your dominion.

Brooke--

How's the cleanup coming?

Hi Noddy ..... Everything's back to normal for me! Thank you for asking. I'm letting nature take it's course on the pond. It's slowly starting to clear up. I had the "fish" guy come and dump some more fish into the pond last Wednesday. Next year I'll work on getting it all pretty again!

Different story for many people I know. A lot of them lost their homes completely. Some that didn't are being told by the city if the cost of repairs equals more than half the appraised value of their home....that they have to raise the house 3 feet. Hard for some of them to afford that. Many of them either had no flood insurance or the flood insurance is flat out NOT going to pay for the expense of raising the home. Sad!

Brooke--

Glad to hear that your life--and landscape--are returning to "normal". Of course you're too much of a lady to be churlish about your damage when other peoples' property and lives have been destroyed.

Still, you much be hoping for a very active, sprouting springtime.

Hold your dominion.