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Underwater property boundary
I’m retracing a survey that was performed nearly 40 years ago. There is a pond that boarders the southern portion of the property. While retracing, using the map produced by the original surveyor, I found that many of the property markers are underwater. It seems that in the past years the pond level has risen significantly. Insomuch that several of the irons that were set seem to be submerged and up to 20 feet offshore. Do I break out the scuba gear and fight the gators? What is the best way to finish this survey?
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10 Replies
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They make metal detectors that work under water. Maybe use one of those, from a boat, and a submersible camera to identify your iron, then put a tall rod on it and get a shot.
Mount this sucker to the bottom of your rod: https://www.amazon.com/Barlus-Underwater-Camera-Stainless-Special/dp/B07CY12ZRR/ref=sr_1_22_sspa?crid=3841VXLHNIX4P&keywords=underwater+video+camera&qid=1556572066&s=gateway&sprefix=underwater+video%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-22-spons&psc=1
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I heat sealed my Schonstedt inside clears visqueen to find my sons phone in a pond.
Did a lake subdivisions that after developed the HOA added a few feet of concrete at the spillway to raise the water level and put the monuments in the lake.
Most places the soil is too loose and not stable enough to walk on.
Since I have the original control for the place, I have been setting offset monuments on the shore.
In wet ground, gravity will cause most iron rods, rebars and pipes to sink into the netherworld.
They will also corrode in an area at the constant water level and leave the above water portion and what is under ground intact.
It depends upon the quality of the ground underwater.
On one local company lake, the shore has eroded into the lake and there are existing rods in original place in the hard clay areas and nothing to be found most everywhere else.
good luck and wear boots that will not slip off in the muck………..
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This is a complex situation. Is ownership to the center of the pond, or is it US waters with Federal and States rights concerning navigable waters? It appears your client is in a submergence situation, losing land to rising waters. Is it merely temporary or is the pond stabilizing at a new water level?
That being said, I’ve never donned scuba gear to search for inundated monuments. I’ll set a witness monument on shore on record bearing with a call to how many feet short of the original monument it is. In some cases, that’s been 250′ as a river slowly changes channels. Yep, if you find the original rebar using scuba you’ll trump my survey, but I consider it a low liability possibility, and assuming the original survey was competently done, my record bearing only witness monument will be pretty damn close to your results.
I am not afraid.
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Have never gone looking underwater. Don’t plan to start.
Probably about 20 years ago we created a tract with one corner being near the center of a pond. It would have been over 10 feet below the surface. We set reference monuments a short distance from the shore line. Then I saw my teenaged assistant grab a bar and give it a mighty heave towards the missing corner. He figured that if they ever drained the pond, they might find it.
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Several river front properties around here have boundaries between the highway and the river. The subdivision plat shows the river boundary to be to the low watermark of the river. When you survey the property, the Plat dimensions put the low watermark 50 to 80 feet out into the river. There’s no way in the last 100 years the river has moved that much. Curiously the lots are just over 1 acre. During coffee court we surmised the low watermark was fudged out into the river to create more lot acreage possibly for sanitation requirements or maybe more fraudulent reasons. These are 1970 era Plats and more than one Surveyor has done it.
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I agree with Mike about this being a complex boundary, but that’s why we chose this career and I heard that all of the easy ones are done. If I were you, I would first look up your states riparian boundary laws. See how those apply to your legal description and your situation. Then chose the appropriate method to resolve the boundary. There are many good resources out there. Brown’s is a go to for me. Check amazon for a book on riparian rights in your state. Good luck.
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First question would be, what caused the rise in water elevation. Second would be, is the survey you are following truly original or a first and what time of year was it performed? Third question is, what does the original GLO map look like if in a PLSS state? If the water body was meandered originally and then during a time of serious drought or human altered low water the surveyor you are following set the corner out there then chances are your clients boundary has been seriously altered. Historical aerials and high water mark data are where you need to search now as well as a cause unusually for high water.
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I surveyed a local property about 15yrs ago where a lake shore had been altered by one land owner that had taken a backhoe and dug out a neighbors pond to where it now has a couple hundred feet of shoreline for his cattle to drink from the lake.
Also, when a lake fills up onto another’s property, that neighbor automatically gains access by boat to the entire lake.
What was done was very evident by common sense. That common sense knowledge does very little in court as evidence. Without a witness to testify to the fact or film or pictures of the wrong, the neighbor gets the access free.
Just because a called for monument falls in the water of pond, it does not automatically cause his ownership boundary to move to the center of the pond.
I would imagine that it would fall relatively where the original deed bearing and distance puts it.
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Is this a seasonal fluctuation? Any chance if you go back in August it will be high & dry?
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What Mike Marks said. Witness corners on shore with ties to submerged corners. ????
That is common practice in Fl. Some spring fed lakes can be 50′ deep or more depending where they are. ????
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