I did not use heat to bend the 1/4" all thread, but it may have been better to use heat. You can surely design a bar guard that will fit over the plate - its needs to be a larger anyway - more "surface area" to collect trash.
It does make sense to have a higher free board to enable full flow of the pipe. Since you are only adding additional free board to the top of the dam that will not always have water against it, its my opinion your tractor can do sufficient compaction. Perhaps have the dozer out to push dirt while you run the tractor with all the weight you can get on it.
Have NRCS tell you what elevation the emergency spillway should be too. ie they set my water level (8' pipe) at 99' from a benchmark, the emergency spillway is two feet higher at 101', and the dam top at 103 which was expected to settle to perhaps 102. On second thought just have them design a pond as if yours was not there yet, then see what it takes to make yours "right".
Do you have a plan on getting extending the discharge pipe down the back of the dam?
Ok, sounds good... I make have to just fabricate something myself for the bar guard, or modify an existing one.
I will see if they will do that for me.
I am thinking about it, as they also mentioned that. I know they make the 22 degree angle pipe connector for the 18" pipe, not sure if they have them for larger than that.... I definitely like the idea of extending the pipe all the way down the dam, just was unsure if that would make the pipe not drain as freely, or just how I could get it to be supported correctly with the angle against the dam side.
