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Making a small difference for the better
Our Oklahoma State Board recently made some minor changes to our published instructions for filing Certified Corner Records. These records are probably currently the only way we can effectively and collectively keep track of the monumentation and perpetuation of the PLSS in Oklahoma.
Here’s a link to the updated instructions:
Instruction Manual for Certified Corner Records
I was happy to read them because I was asked to “ghost” a number of the paragraphs a few months back. I haven’t yet seen the final product. I thought it came across just as I had suggested. I do hope in some small way I’ve helped make a difference in our profession here in Oklahoma.
As with all of my verbose proliferations of the English language there is no evidence of its author. Just the satisfaction knowing I did something hopefully positive is plenty for me. That’s the way I prefer. 😉
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12 Replies
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Good job-
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That’s great. I think much progress is being made in the states.
UCLS (Utah Council of Land Surveyors) work up a standard which I think is very good.
View it here:
https://www.ucls.org/assets/documents/corner%20record%20guide%20final%2020131203.pdf
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If a document like that were to come to force in Missouri heads to blow up! Lots of surveyors in Missouri are scared to death to record anything. I like it though, good job!
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…Lots of surveyors in Missouri are scared to death to record anything…
As in a lot of States, surveyors in Oklahoma were scourged out of the 19th. century and into the present in shackles, screaming and scratching the whole way.
When our Corner Records act came into existence back in the late seventies there were plenty of dissenting voices concerned that a written record might somehow imply or create undue liability upon the filing surveyor. One surveyor’s voice of reason (he’s been gone thirty years or more now) appealed with the statement, “Instead of worrying about a corner record being used to prove a survey incorrect, we should be rejoicing over something to prove the survey was correct.”
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Thank you for your efforts. It is a little disappointing that the state board needs to issue a document intended for Professional Land Surveyors that explains, at length, the difference between an obliterated corner and an existent one, and that found original monuments are to be held.
Also, the reference to “third order or above” on page 9 is archaic. So it goes. There is a specific instruction not to use “HERE” positions, but NAD27 coordinates scaled from a USGS map seem to be OK.
So there is still some work to do. And repeated revisions have Frankenstein-ed the document. Probably the next go around should just be a total rewrite
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…So there is still some work to do. And repeated revisions have Frankenstein-ed the document. Probably the next go around should just be a total rewrite
Plenty to do…fer sure.
I’ve eaten plenty of Smashburgers in Moore with board personnel discussing the state of affairs of our instructions…and every other aspect of the Statutes for that matter. We were happy just to get some of the small things addressed.
And yes, the archaic “positional accuracy” was top of a list…once. It would be a lot easier to get things changed if the people that did the “approving” had any inkling about how positional tolerances are dealt with in the real world. I would bet some of them would stick the words “latitudes and departures” in the statute if they could. 😉
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Don’t go picking on us DMD types…
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“When our Corner Records act came into existence back in the late seventies there were plenty of dissenting voices concerned that a written record might somehow imply or create undue liability upon the filing surveyor.”
When our mandatory recordation rules were first proposed about half the registrants claimed they were an undue burden because they would have to pay a $24 recording fee for every job. One fellow actually said that if he passed this fee on to his clients he might not still be the “low bidder” and he would lose work!
I’ve tried to record everything I’ve ever done – I want those following in my footsteps to know what I did and why…
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Now you just need to get people to actually follow the instructions.
One thing that I think should be included is a reminder about the GLO/BLM resurveys that have been done. I once found a mag nail marking a corner. The corner record indicated the 1880’s wood post was gone, but no mention of the stone set during a 1901 resurvey that was lying half above the ground 10 feet away at exactly the record position.
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When our mandatory recordation rules were first proposed about half the registrants claimed they were an undue burden because they would have to pay a $24 recording fee for every job. One fellow actually said that if he passed this fee on to his clients he might not still be the “low bidder” and he would lose work!..
Oklahoma abolished the elected office of County Surveyor around the same time Corner Recordation came into existence. One of the main sources of income for a county surveyor was his corner references. I remember plenty of times we paid the county surveyor to come out and set a 40d nail from his “secret” book of references. That’s just how you surveyed around here in the ’60s and ’70s. It wasn’t uncommon to return to the job a few weeks later and NOT find that same 40d nail….like the county surveyor came out and dug it up after we were finished.
This was common and the main complaint against corner recordation. A lot of surveyors felt they were being forced to give up info they had used as their stock in trade to make a living.
Things have changed for the better…but it has taken most all of my adult career to see the changes
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Oregon has had recording since the mid 1940’s. But the records before about the mid ’70s are pretty spotty. Anything before the ’90s is apt to be sketchy. Washington has had it since 1973, and there are some real whoppers in the first 20 years. I guess it takes a couple generations before these things really get up to speed.
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It’s been the law in California since 1892 but compliance was pretty light until recent decades except to say a few Southern California Counties seem to have had very high compliance rates.
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