It's been a while since I posted. Everything is going well with my small quarter acre pond. It has great run-off, is spring fed, and there is a high water table, so it has never been more than 8" below the top of the riser pipe in the year and a half since it first filled.

I went wading in the other day to put an additional 3 inches of pipe on top of my vertical riser. The riser is about four feet long and then elbows through the dam. The total pipe through the dam is 40 feet. The riser and the through-pipe are 6" PVC.

While standing next to the pipe (and man, was that water cold) I felt with my foot for the concrete pier block that I had placed under the pipe at the bend. It had sunk / and or shifted a few inches, and was no longer in contact with the pipe. I don't know when it happened, but the pipe has been draining for over a year, often with huge amounts of water going through, and there has not been a problem.

It's going to be another month or two before it's warm enough to fully submerge myself in order to reset a support. How important is a support under the riser pipe? Does the water surrounding the riser support the pipe enough to offset the pressure exerted by the water running through?

VA