:good:
> It looks as if the US Supreme Court just simplified the heck out of surveying in California, or at least in locating the State's seaward boundary.
In 1969 Oregon's legislature defined the limit of the "Ocean Shore" by defining a "vegetation line" in terms of NAD27 coordinates. Many, many pages of NAD27 coordinates. ORS 390.770. The coordinates are listed to the nearest foot.
It also directed "the State Parks and Recreation Department ...to periodically reexamine the line of vegetation as established and described by ORS 390.770 for the purpose of obtaining information and material suitable for a re-evaluation and re-definition, if necessary, of such line".... which, of course, has never happened.
EDIT: Mike Berry posted this same information while I was composing!
Holy cadastral fornication, Batman!
From the Oregon statute:
> thence from point number Cl-7-1 southerly along the Pacific Coast by a series of straight lines connecting the following designated, numbered and described points in consecutive order to the Oregon-California boundary line [...]
and describing those "designated, numbered, and described points" by ... a projection of NAD27!
Oregon Beach Bill
390.770 was codified in 1969 as a result of the 1967 Beach Bill. The following 2007 story aired again last year and is pretty interesting:
http://www.opb.org/television/programs/oregonexperience/segment/the-beach-bill-/
Oregon surveyors might enjoy the 1967 photo below with Governer Tom McCall and Oregon PLS #1013/PE #5101
Clever of them to express the boundary as coordinates instead of bearings and distances so it has to close. No busts in that line for sure!
News flash for Kent
Offshore Lease Boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico are defined by the Bureau of Land Management for Louisiana and Texas State Plane coordinates, NAD27 in U.S. Survey Feet.
Offshore Lease Boundaries (DEEP WATER) in the Gulf of Mexico are defined by the Bureau of Land Management in UTM coordinates, NAD1927 in U.S. Survey Feet.
Essentially this screws the State of California because ...
The SCOTUS used coordinates to describe the sinuousities of the coastline rather than employ "Straight Baselines." This limits the extent of the State Waters to the benefit of the Federal Government with regard to future income from ROYALTIES for mineral extraction (oil & gas) lease blocks. The Feds get to claim out to the continental shelf from the end of the State Waters. Without Straight Baselines, the Feds get more tax & royalty revenue to the State's disadvantage.
Trivial points with regard to datum & coordinate system have nothing to do with the real deal, the State of California got screwed out of TRILLIONS of future mineral royalties!
Oregon Beach Bill
With Professor Schultz involved we can be sure that the ca-wad-in-auts are without blun-dah.
News flash for Kent
> Offshore Lease Boundaries (DEEP WATER) in the Gulf of Mexico are defined by the Bureau of Land Management in UTM coordinates, NAD1927 in U.S. Survey Feet.
Unless they've changed in the last year or two, almost ALL of the oil & gas producer's data bases in Oklahoma are NAD27 also.
you've been warned..;-)