Pond excavation in the Finger Lakes

A pond in Ontario County is a great thing when it holds water and a mud hole when it doesn't. The difference is soil. We have a lot of clay here, which is good news — a pond dug into decent clay and keyed in properly will hold without a liner. Gravel and shale sites are another story, and we'll tell you before we dig if your ground won't hold.

We dig new ponds from a quarter acre on up, including the dam or berm where the terrain calls for one, the spillway that keeps a big storm from washing it out, and the shaping — shallow shelves for wildlife, deep water for fish and for swimming in August. We also dredge and enlarge existing ponds that have silted in over the decades.

Depending on size and location, a pond may need a permit from the town, the DEC, or both, especially near streams and wetlands. We help sort that out before the machines show up.

Ponds that hold water in Ontario County

The best pond ground around here is the heavy clay in the flats of Gorham, Hopewell, Phelps, and the farm country east of Canandaigua. Dig a test pit, fill it with water, and if it's still there in 24 hours you've got a pond site. The Bristol Hills, Naples, and the lake's steep shores are shale and gravel — beautiful land, but ponds there usually need a bentonite treatment or a liner, and we'll say so up front.

Spring-fed ponds are common on the hillsides. If your lot has a wet spot that never dries, there's likely a spring feeding it, and a pond built around it will keep its level through August. We look for those before we lay out the dig.

One local caution: a lot of pond calls come from people who want to dam a stream. That's DEC territory — protected streams and wetlands have strict rules — and it's rarely the best way to build a pond anyway. An off-stream pond fed by a diversion or a spring is easier to permit and easier to keep clean.