Tresspassing to collect data

Wow. That is scary...from a photo control standpoint it is often difficult to determine who owns land, or to get in touch with them once you are out in the field. I try to avoid trespassing, but sometimes it is necessary, or sometimes you don't even know if it is public or private.

The question is: Will this have any affect on the Right of Entry law already on the books in Wyoming? How will surveyors in Wyoming survey a section breakdown if they can't get permission from each landowner? How will surveyors in Wyoming do a lot survey if they need to check the surrounding lot corners to be able to re-establish the missing lot corners?

This appears to be one of those proposals that has not be thought through. Basically a knee jerk reaction to some privacy issues in some other circumstance. Maybe the Wyoming surveyors will be able to show some sense to the lawmakers.

There isn't a right of entry in Wyoming, and this law isn't about surveying.

There is a process that involves getting the sheriff onsite and it's almost impossible to really use, you can, but you don't want to.

Anyway it's about time someone took a stand!!:-P

Trespassing is defined as

"Doing of unlawful act or of lawful act in unlawful manner to injury of another's person or property."

Hopefully your not meeting those requirements during the course of your work!

I'm sure each state has different laws regarding trespass.

In California, as long as you are not doing damage to the property, you are not guilty of trespassing unless the owner of the property has indicated their desire to restrict access. There are two ways they can meet the notification requirements.

1 - post signs along the boundary at specific intervals.
2 - verbally inform the person they need to leave and not come back.

Fencing is not necessarily enough.

However, it is only respectful to stay off land with improvements without permission. In my mind, crossing unimproved land that isn't posted or fenced, is not trespassing.

It is very interesting how states differ with respect to Right-of-Entry. Here in Washington State, AFAIK the only ones who have statutory ROE are the WSDOT surveyors per RCW 47.01.170.

I'd like to see someone publish a summarization of which states have ROE for public and/or private surveyors.

Agree that it is scary. How in the world can a surveyor go measure a necessary GLO corner without entering other peoples property? It's not like we're hopping fences and kicking dogs in the neighbors yard in a subdivision. We drive 1/2 mile or more up a two track to get there.

I don't know any surveyor who would damage any property to get to that point. In my states of PLS the ROE is legislated for good, and our right to carry out our job. Not much different than the meter reader needing to get in your back yard, but kinda sorta different.

My guess is this goof ball in WY has never owned property or wanted a survey done. Funny how rules change

Similar philosophy exists in Louisiana, promulgated by the RR companies.

Looks like it would affect surveyors.

It's probably backlash against the endangered species act. I don't want them out looking around my property either, they find something and your property rights to use are extinguished. But, I can see it against surveyors also, there is no love lost in Utah for surveyors screwing with peoples boundaries and land rights.

I am very leery of ever entering posted land. Over 30 years of doing photo control (probably in excess of 30,000 points in 50 states) I have probably trespassed on posted land a few times, but not many. Fortunately, the company I do most of the photo control for uses ABGPS, so I have a lot more leeway in moving points than if I was doing full field control for a model.

Actually, the few confrontations I have had were on mostly public roads in front of someone's house. I am pretty easy going and friendly when people approach me, but there have been a few total idiots.

Since I do very little boundary work, I have not had to deal with hostile adjoiners, which I imagine can be a problem

I was shot at as a kid for trespassing. Heard someone yell at me, then saw a gun pointed my direction. As soon as the shot went off, I started running as fast as I could.

I ran so fast I thought I would just leap over the fence. First leg made it over, but in the process I slit the back of my thigh open for about 10" on the barbwire (down to the muscle). I kept running with blood streaming down my leg.

Never did tell my parents about that one (didn't want a tetanus shot)and have been very cautious about being on others land since.

Still have a good scar from that experience.

Now I look back on it and think what an A$$ that guy was for shooting over the heads of a couple kids.

When I first started in GPS (1986), we were doing a countywide bluebook project in VA. All the obs were at night. We had an aussie working on the crew, he went to setup on an existing triangulation station about 4 AM. He was shot at, jumped in the car and took off. When we went back the next day with the sheriff, the landowner said he was just shooting over his head to scare him. It worked, he was scared.

Back then nobody had ever heard of GPS, and the limited number of satellites were up at night in the winter. It made for a lot of interesting encounters with police, etc in the middle of the night.

We had a farmer near where I grew up who would shoot salt out of a shotgun at kids trespassing. Never got me, but I was told it burned pretty good but was not lethal.

Imagine what the consequences would be now days for shooting over the heads of kids. How times have changed.

As I have gotten older, more and more private land is being posted and gated.
Which I think is directly linked to the increase of actual trespass (cutting trees, dumping trash, starting fires, growing drugs, ect.).

That bill died in committee.

http://legiscan.com/WY/bill/SF0085/2014

The proposed legislation was due to a known company that has trespassed quite a bit in collecting water samples. The bill didn't even make it out of committee. If it is presented in the next session, it will likely die a slow death. The problem is there are already trespass laws that are effective and this tends to try and change the law to a felony etc. Our state surveyor association will be prepared if the bill is resubmitted in the 2015 session. :-/

Pablo B-)

May want to read the links, Pablo -

Looks like the bill is coming back for the 2015 general session.

An interim committee is meeting in Rawlins next week and will discuss the bill at 1000 hrs on Tuesday 13 May. Click on the "Agenda" hyperlink found in the PDF that appears on clicking Bfarmer's second link to see the schedule and a list of participants.

This year's session was a budget session, so many bills naturally did not get out of committee.

Mebbe someone from PLSW should try to get on next Tuesday's agenda?

GB

As a kid growing up on a remote airbase in Germany a friend got peppered with rock salt shot when we were messing around in a farmers field. It looked real painful and was powerful enough to shred a pair of Levi's. We drug him back across the fence to the airbase and dropped him. No way were we going to explain his bleeding leg to his Dad.

" ... If the data collected by the person includes global positioning system data, specific geographic coordinates or legal description of the property ... "

This part of the proposed law looks like a direct shot at surveyors.

May want to read the links, Pablo -

Glenn,
We have a member going to the meeting.
Pablo B-)