I'm not a soil engineer but my guess is that's not going to work long term. I assume the exact same thing would happen as happened before. There will be a void between the concrete and soil where the curved part goes into the soil because they expand and contract differently. Same thing happened with the culvert. But maybe it would last another 20 to 30 years, I sure don't know. I've never seen an earth dam with a culvert for over flow. The overflows I've seen were vertical pipes out in the pond set to the max desired height and then run underground, under the earth dam and far enough away to not be an erosion problem. The other system I've seen is used by fish farmers to drain the pond completely. A large concrete drain at the bottom of the pond and a large pipe running underground and under the dam. In this case there's a concrete buttress where the water comes out. They open that and the shrimp or fish come out with the water. So in my limited experience I've only seen continuous earth for dams. And I've always thought any kind of overflow over the top was a no no. I'd call around to some gov agencies like Fish & Game, EPA, local building department and your local water district. It's completely free to talk with them and no harm getting info specific to your property. Plus they might give you free advice on proper building for your area. Plus you want to attract waterfowl and that's something the gov or Ducks Unlimited would probably be happy to help you do. They might even kick in some grant money. The downside of talking to the gov is if they see the breached dam you might get stuck with having to reduce erosion or something. When you brought the property you also bought the previous owner's problems which sucks. In general have I've worked with gov agencies they've been helpful and really try to not ruin your day. But I'd not mention the previous pond and the breach to start with and just get info on building a pond, because that's really what you're doing. Just because there was a pond there for 20-30 years doesn't convey any grandfather type stuff I don't think. Keep in mind that if Fish & Game says it's OK that doesn't mean it's OK with EPA, the state or local building departments. In most western states the landowner doesn't own surface water automatically. I think in Colorado certificates of water ownership are issued, like a deed, but for the water. I think you need a permit or something from your water court just for the storage of water. How you get the water to store is another matter. And that's right, Colorado has a court system devoted solely to water issues. People in the west take water ownership real serious. As for just the block structure...I'm also not a structural engineer and only have experience with a max of 4' above ground walls holding water. Horizontal rebar does most of the work. I like to use all bond beam blocks in stead of regular block. That allows for horizontal rebar and a contiguous horizontal beam of poured concrete. The curve and the buttresses could be a problem, I don't know. If a structural engineer told me to build that way I would. But if this is just what looks stronger to you that should be a red flag. Sometimes structures that look stronger are actually weaker. A curve imo couldn't use block, it would have to be formed. Just my guess. The buttresses I think have to be placed with care. For example the curve you have is an basically a single arch on its side, but you have 3 buttresses. I think that middle buttresses might cause a weakness. If you wanted 3 buttresses I think you need 2 arches. Buttress on each arch end and the buttress in the middle holding the other end of both arches. The buttresses on the ends are pointing the wrong way imo. The idea of the arch is to transfer stress to the buttresses. The way the side buttresses are positioned the stress wouldn't be transferred, the wall would want to side past or pull away. The one thing I am certain of is a 9.5' wall would need a serious footer. I think calling around will get you way better info than asking in a forum. There are pond forums more specific to your type of pond, but even then I'd be careful where I was getting info. Even spending a couple of hundred bucks to talk to a local engineer could actually save you some money in the near term and a lot of money in the long term. A soil engineer might be able to tell you how to install an overflow pipe run under the dam (you already have most of the trench) and then can tell you exactly the kind of soil/material to fill in the void and how to properly compact it as you go. That would be a lot cheaper and I suspect last longer.

Thanks for posting this, Raven. There's something I've been wondering about. I just got an email from a company 2 days ago (unfortunately, I'm forgetting which company) that alerted me to this Epsilon breach. I don't understand why it took the company that long to contact me. Is it bc. Epsilon took that long to tell them? or are different companies just making individual decisions about whether and when to contact their customers whose information was compromised? It's very upsetting to think any of these companies - Epsilon or the individual companies who have my name and email address - are taking the liberty to make their own decision about whether to inform me - and how much to disclose. Shouldn't some official regulatory office (not sure if this would be the FCC or what) be stepping in here and telling Epsilon and the effected companies what they must disclose to people and how they have to handle it. It just seems as if every company has had it's own discretion in how to handle this. Not a single company that contacted me told me anything substantial or helpful. All communications have had the feeling of "we're covering our a** by telling you that there's been a breach" - but we don't really want to tell you the details of how you might be effected - and we're really not going to give you meaningful advice about how you might need to handle this. Lynn.

A decade ago, my credit was stolen. I filed a police report, and what was offered to me was a few years of my credit being frozen, which to me seems like a joke. The thief would still be in possession of my SS number, right? So, it seems, the only thing to do is to pay for a credit monitoring service. AAA had the best deal at the time, I think it is still about $6 or $7/mo. And I made sure to monitor my young childrens' credit too....because if their SS# is stolen and used, it could be decades before it is discovered. I think credit monitoring for a fee is the best answer, but I will love to hear what others do.

Hi everyone, So sorry some of you were impacted by this, but glad you found the notification useful to secure your accounts here and elsewhere. There is no indication that your accounts here were impacted, and unfortunately, we don't always know which site was breached - only that the specific combination of email and password that you also used here was vulnerable. If you use the same email and password on other sites, it is a great idea to update those as well, and to update all your passwords regularly to help keep your data safe on the web. Hope that helps!