Aquatic Dredging

Question: What is dredging? Why is it an important aspect of pond maintenance?

Answer: “Dredging is generally required of retention ponds on about a 10- to 15-year basis. Over time, you end up with sediment, runoff, organic build up, and this ends up with a deposition of sediment on the bottom. The problem with that is in the capacity of that pond is not what it was intended to do, and you typically end up with excess algae growth."

“So, one option to cure that would be to dredge the pond; so, remove that sediment. The traditional method is to drain that pond, use an excavator and a dump truck, dig it out and remove it. That’s a very costly process. Another option to that is what we offer, which is pond dredge services. Our pond dredge, we have three units—we have kind of a large, medium, small—and they’re all scaled to whatever the project size is. And they’re all hydraulically run pump units that almost act like a vacuum cleaner. Our large dredge unit has a 10-foot tiller head with suction. So it cuts and pulls the material out through the pump system. The dredged material runs through a supply line, which is generally an eight-inch supply line, back to what are called watering bags. These bags are designed to handle all the sediment and all the fluid that’s associated with the dredge. The bag itself will let the water out, but the sediment stays in the bag. The bags are then buried or we will put them in dump trucks or roll-off dumpsters and remove off-site, whatever the client wishes.”

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If you own or manage a pond, you will need to dredge it every 10 to 15 years to remove buildup from the bottom.