Page 299 - Moving the Earth_ The Workbook of Excavation

PONDS AND EARTH DAMS

PONDS AND EARTH DAMS 6.35

The dragline may roughly level the piles as it builds them, or this work may be left to a bull-
dozer. It may be advisable to use the lightest dozer that can do the work, as unexpected soft spots
may be found, due either to slower drying of sections of fine-grained soil or excessive amounts of
humus in spots.
Since cuts are usually shallow near shore, and trees may interfere with maneuverability, it may
not be practical to build the piles large enough to make a good land connection, in which case
extra fill might be trucked in to bridge the gap.
When the windrows have dried and have been leveled off for a roadway, the dragline or
hydraulic backhoe can walk out to the end of one, possibly with the precaution of using platforms
or poles, and dig it back from the end, loading trucks backed to it from the shore. It may just dig
the piled material, or go down into the pond, either to deepen it or to obtain fill. Sections of road-
way may be left to form islands. (See Fig. 6.23.)
Use of this method involves deepening the pond 6 inches to 2 feet or more. The double han-
dling, the trucking, and the volume of material to be removed may make it prohibitively expensive
for large areas, although it results in a pond which is better than new.

FIGURE 6.23 Trucking out piled mud.