Brandon Keat

Thanks for clarifying. Ours is definitely not form a dream bed!
We dug today and found clay a few feet down - so I'm feeling like we should be good.

Thanks - Slava On!
We will be digging a test pit soon to see how deep the clay is.
What exactly do you mean by 'running surface water'?
The site is on a large hillside (everything around here is), if that helps.

I am a high school teacher about to build a cob oven with students in Homestead PA (outside Pittsburgh). We want to use materials form our site, but I have concerns. WE are within sight of the former Homestead Works - once the largest steel mill in the world. For about a century it pumped all kinds of nasty stuff into the environment, and I worry about our clay. Local soils are notoriously contaminated. Our site tested positive for arsenic. Is it safe to use clay form our site in our cob oven?