OK so I have to ask...why after building such an outstanding looking steel framed dock why did you use logs as the support? Steel pipe driven down into the bottom would've been my natural inclination.
Good observation.
Those "hedge posts" will still be there long after any steel pipe (unless maybe it is half in thick wall) will be long gone. Those are "Osage Orange". They do not rot. Termites only affect the outer layer of bark and outermost wood.
Below the dam of this pond is a scrap pile of old 4-6" hedge posts. I put some of them in the pond attached to steel post uprights as structure/cover. These posts are already probably 50 years old and most are still sound. The fence they were in I took out last summer just after my new pond was constructed. My dad built that fence when I was a small child, built from posts he cut out of hedge rows on our farms. Some of the post were split posts I can remember my dad and brothers taking a sledge with steel wedges and splitting 12" posts four ways or 5-8" posts in half, to get the line size posts. So they are already 50 years old and could have been put in another fence. I'll try to get a picture of what the 50 year old posts look like later today.
The posts used in the pond were a minimum of 12" diameter. I used a 24" hydraulic post hole digger on the front of my tractor loader to dig the holes, and I had one post I could not use because it would not go into the hole. They are big. They are set in concrete 4' deep. My son and I cut a couple of them and the son and DIL cut the rest.
Those posts will be there when my grandsons that helped build the dock are dead and gone and the pond filled up with silt.
Also part of the reason for using them is nostalgia. Those Osage Orange were planted in tree rows for fence lines by my ancestors. They used to sub-divide nearly every quarter section in this part of the world. Our farm here has been in the family since 1870, originally sold from rail road right of way given to the railroads as part of their enticement to build the railroad lines. Although the posts came off another farm of ours, the Osage Orange is a part of the history of settlers of this part of the country. I put Osage Orange stumps in the bottom of the pond. It only seemed fitting for them to be a part of this pond. And they last almost forever.
If I would have had the time and the energy, I would have liked to have some made into lumber and built the whole dock out of it. But I am better at metal than wood and have a fully equipped shop and several welders.
Long story. Sorry.