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&%&$##@**$# one-and-done surveyors
Posted by holy-cow on September 23, 2018 at 12:57 amJust because the client needs several hundred section corners found is no excuse to be sloppy. Found another example of such &%&$##@**$# surveying today. ”Well, the Government Field Notes from 1857 say this quarter corner is halfway along a straight line between the southeast and northeast section corners, so that’s where I put my bar and shiny cap.”
Anyone surveying in that county regularly knows the corner is actually where it appears it should be and that the Field Notes frequently belong in the Fiction section of the library. We routinely find the original stones confirming the fictional status of the Notes.
In this case the shiny cap is over 20 feet to the west of the true corner. The stone, near the center line of the county road has been reported several times. However, the most recent find was prior to the practice of filing Land Survey Reference Reports (section corner ties) with the State Archives. Newbys and one-and-dones can’t take the time and effort to ever search through the survey records on file with the county. If there is no LSRR, the corner must be “lost”, in their opinion.
The longterm problem is that the next doofus who comes along and finds the LSRR in a computer search will believe he has struck gold.
GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
holy-cow replied 5 years, 7 months ago 14 Members · 25 Replies- 25 Replies
Dunning-Kruger Effect
Yup. One doesn’t know enough to know they don’t know enough.
- Posted by: Steven Metelski
Dunning-Kruger Effect
Seems to be more prevalent among surveyors who can look, but can not see. ?
- Posted by: holy cow
Just because the client needs several hundred section corners found is no excuse to be sloppy. Found another example of such &%&$##@**$# surveying today. ”Well, the Government Field Notes from 1857 say this quarter corner is halfway along a straight line between the southeast and northeast section corners, so that’s where I put my bar and shiny cap.”
Anyone surveying in that county regularly knows the corner is actually where it appears it should be and that the Field Notes frequently belong in the Fiction section of the library. We routinely find the original stones confirming the fictional status of the Notes.
In this case the shiny cap is over 20 feet to the west of the true corner. The stone, near the center line of the county road has been reported several times. However, the most recent find was prior to the practice of filing Land Survey Reference Reports (section corner ties) with the State Archives. Newbys and one-and-dones can’t take the time and effort to ever search through the survey records on file with the county. If there is no LSRR, the corner must be “lost”, in their opinion.
The longterm problem is that the next doofus who comes along and finds the LSRR in a computer search will believe he has struck gold.
GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
At least twice in the last 3 or 4 years I have emailed photos of the “real” corner to my brethren that felt compelled to stick their cheap rebar “half way and on line” between corners that have been properly perpetuated.
In one case I sent a photo and a letter to the newer owner of a piece of property. Their names were derived from county records and I’m assuming they paid for the survey. My “shot-in-the-dark” must have hit the bull’s eye…the surveyor that was in a hurry called me and he was mad as hell. I guess his client must have called him.
The surveyor wanted to know why I hadn’t contacted him. I read him the dates of six times I attempted to call him (left 5 voice mails) with no reply. He was going to “turn me in to the Board”. I told him in a few days I was having lunch with the head of the State Board’s “enforcement” department and I’d be sure to mention his complaint in person.
I never heard anything from it. ?
A bit off the main point..
20 feet from a split isn’t fraud when you look at the time period. I hear the term thrown around a lot but it’s usually not warranted…
I completely agree with the gist of your post, but I don’t get calling an 1857 survey “fiction” for being 20 feet off. What makes you think they didn’t actually measure it as half way?
- Posted by: aliquot
I completely agree with the gist of your post, but I don’t get calling an 1857 survey “fiction” for being 20 feet off. What makes you think they didn’t actually measure it as half way?
HC is in Kansas, where you can see from section corner to section corner in many cases. 20 feet, while not a lot for Oregon/Washington, is a bunch there. Still, it probably doesn’t rise to the level of fraud.
In this case there are two small hills preventing the line of sight that can occur rather frequently.
Also, in this case I believe the first surveyors made a reasonable attempt to do the job correctly. The problem is that there are many examples of fiction across the county. In those cases, the actual measurement of a half mile may be off by 200 feet or a sideways bend of 100 feet or more may exist. Stubbed in quarter corners are frequent. That is fiction.
One-and-dones never expect to ever be in a situation where they question their own work on a future project. We have had a project in that section before and may well have others in the future. Taking shortcuts will catch up to you sooner or later. Not searching the area around he theoretical center corner for evidence of earlier survey work is one of those shortcuts. Not searching all the available records is another.
- Posted by: holy cow
One-and-dones never expect to ever be in a situation where they question their own work on a future project. We have had a project in that section before and may well have others in the future. Taking shortcuts will catch up to you sooner or later. Not searching the area around he theoretical center corner for evidence of earlier survey work is one of those shortcuts. Not searching all the available records is another.
I definitely agree with this.
I’ve run into trouble too many times with surveyors who claim all the surveys in their area are fradulant, or that none of the originals are there, so there is no need to spend the time to look.
Original evidence lurks under the ground, and in disguise, even in Oklahoma and Kansas.
Sounds like the North Dakota oil patch. One rubber stamp overseeing the work of dozens of field crews, working as fast as possible. Filing corner certificates, at least, but those certs tell you almost nothing you didn’t know already.
Let me be clear. What I am calling fiction are Field Notes that report precise 40 chain intervals and straight lines laid out in the proper sequence when the truth is many quarter corners were stubbed in and the north section lines were not measured from the northwest corner to the recently set northeast corner and returned to set the monument at the midpoint. Maybe a large percentage were done correctly but the numerous exceptions cause the modern surveyors sleepless nights debating whether to go with what the Field Notes report or what is much more likely to be the true location of the original monument. Those who always believe the Field Notes are accurate need to seek employment in some other line of work. One does not learn the difference overnight. You must learn the truth via experience in the specific area where the survey is needed.
Similar background experience is needed with older town plats and subdivisions and additions to those towns. One needs to follow the work of their predecessors who have already set many monuments.
Unless you can see it on the ground and have the paper with the field data to support the work, it never happened.
To follow-up with HC’s last post, Bob Dahl stresses this concept in the CFedS training course. Paraphrasing, there are three things the PLSS retracement surveyor should know/determine.
1. What was the original surveyor supposed to do.
2. What did the original surveyor say he did.
3. What did the retracement surveyor determine that the original surveyor actually did!
In other words, what’s in the Manual, what’s in the field notes and on the plat, and what a PLS should do.
Absolutely, but without any evidence to the contrary, the original survey is the best evidence. If you have recovered multiple corners in the township that show they were stubbed out, or have other specific evidence, then it is definitely appropriate to place it where a stubbed out survey would place it, but just making a blanket assumption that surveys were not preformed as stated in the official record won’t win many conflicts.
We can all wave our book-learnin’ knowledge around but if your single proportioned brass falls 20 feet off the centerline of a Kansan section line road you might want to review your “solution”.
I don’t think anyone here is advocating that blanket assumptions should be made that the original surveys were never performed as stated in the official record. However, there are examples that detail the shortcuts taken in the old contract surveys. Many years ago, Paul Reid shared with me the 1883 journal of Harley Nettleton, who worked under U.S. Deputy Surveyor George W. Fairfield who was contracted to subdivided 23 townships in Sioux County, Nebraska.
Surveying in Nebraska: The 1883 Journal of Harley Nettleton
An interesting read for anyone working in northwest Nebraska.
Some areas of the PLSS were surveyed in a slapdash manner and there are ways to analyze the record before stepping foot in the field. I conducted an analysis a few years ago of a township on the Western Slope of Colorado. I downloaded the National Elevation Dataset (NED) for the area and created a local map projection of the elevation grid in chains. I plotted up all of the calls in the field notes and found that over 1/3 of the township subdivision corners were either stubbed out or never set. The original surveyor appeared to have avoided the areas with thick brush like the plague and generally followed the drainages with existing roads! ?
Why is the new Surveyor in the area always wrong? He might have done the Surveyor to Kansas standards. Seems like the established Surveyors in the area always bad mouth the new Surveyors, because they don’t like new Surveyors in the area or worried they are going to catch the mistakes they have been making.
I think our modern day expectations can get in the way of a good retracement. The old surveys were done for land disposal, imagine doing a township in two or three days in hilly and scattered timbered country. We have some of those, one I recall was done from dec. 20-22. The three shortest days of the year, through timber and some bigger hills.
It wasn’t so much the point of these surveys to make meticulous measurements, but it was more to put markers on the ground, get it done, get it ready for homesteads. You see the same surveyors in the notes doing township after township from 1880-1882, someone once remarked that 2200 townships were surveyed in the state those three years. They really covered lots of ground.
Its clear that they would have more than one set of crews working and not really laying it out the way the notes tell you they did, if you think the way they did you can often “break the code” and find evidence. I’ve seen prorates for a 1/4 corner 15 feet from an old fence,,,,,,,,more than once. ?
- Posted by: Scott Ellis
Why is the new Surveyor in the area always wrong? He might have done the Surveyor to Kansas standards. Seems like the established Surveyors in the area always bad mouth the new Surveyors, because they don’t like new Surveyors in the area or worried they are going to catch the mistakes they have been making.
I didn’t see Holy Cow indict new surveyors in the OP. I interpreted from this quote, “Newbys and one-and-dones can’t take the time and effort to ever search through the survey records on file with the county.” that HC was upset with quickie-dickie surveyors.
This thread is not unlike any of a number of threads started by an Austinite surveyor who often complained of other surveyors who failed to do the required homework and research.
- Posted by: Scott Ellis
Why is the new Surveyor in the area always wrong? He might have done the Surveyor to Kansas standards. Seems like the established Surveyors in the area always bad mouth the new Surveyors, because they don’t like new Surveyors in the area or worried they are going to catch the mistakes they have been making.
I don’t think that the HC was really meaning to pick on newly licensed surveyors with his comment, but was instead even talking about surveyors moving into an area they are not familiar with working in. If you have worked in an area for many years, you know that the locating surveyors were notorious for not closing on the 3rd square of the day on Fridays, as an example. In my area, I am familiar with which surveyors tended to give an extra 5 varas each section, the same as I know which ones were only going to run a straight line by pure accident. If I am called to another part of the state, I do so beginning with lots of research of both old and more recent surveys, and don’t go in planning to recreate everything square. History itself says that most of what is around me is rarely a perfect square. I have hundreds of pictures of where I have recovered original survey markers (many with marks clearly still etched in them) that the once and done surveyor walked right over, for reasons I cannot be sure of, but I can sayI suspect it was because it was lots faster to go to the fence corner, or to plunge a straight line and go 2640′ and say this has to be it.
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