JKinAK, post: 390113, member: 7219 wrote: Assuming that you are in PA - too bad there isn't a Right of Entry/Surveyor's Trespass Statute like there are in 27+ States.
The 2006 NSPS ROE Committee Report at http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/nsps.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/Resources/RIGHT_OF_ENTRY_CMT_REPORT_10.pdf
details the laws in place 10 years ago - I wonder if more states have adopted ROE statutes.
Arizona has had a ROE for many years - looks like NSPS missed it. We have a copy in truck, but I always tell the crew it won't stop a bullet!
"....Any person exercising the right of entry .......shall compensate the landowner for all other actual monetary damages, or $100, whichever is greater...."
This is from http://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/672.047&apos ;">Oregon's ROE regulation. As written, It amounts to a $100 entry fee. Fortunately, no one has quite figured that out yet.
We went to look for a USACE sedimentation range monument recently on a farm. The owner took Todd out on a UTV, they found the monument, and the guy said just come anytime, keys would be in the UTV, he could use it to get out to the monument.
So not everyone is difficult. In fact, most people are very cooperative, even interested in what we are doing.
Back in 1986 I had a guy from Australia working with me, newly arrived. We were doing a bluebook survey of Prince William County in Virginia, all of the observations were at night (that was when the limited constellation was available). I sent him to occupy an NGS station. He was setup on it when the owner came out on the porch, yelled down to him to find out what he was doing, and when told "Surveying", he fired off a shotgun blast. The poor Aussie jumped in his car and took off like a bat out of hell. A PWC sheriff's deputy pulled him over, and they went back to talk to the owner. He said he just "fired over his head" to scare him. He was actually quite reasonable, said it was no problem to occupy it again, he just didn't think anyone would be surveying at night.
On one occasion we needed access to a USGS/whatever monument atop a fair-sized knob where the only reasonable access was through the yard and pasture of a fellow I knew. There were two problems. His wife had suffered a severe stroke not long before that time that had numerous social effects. She had gone into full-blown panic several times when even some of her nearby relatives had stopped by the house at some odd time without calling ahead. I did not want to cause her any distress. The husband was a classic bipolar example. On his bad days one did not want to be within eyesight of him and he was a very, very tough hombre. The good thing was that I knew them well enough to know they, at least, would recognize me immediately. Fortunately, the husband is the one who came to the door and it was one of his good days. He even went up the knob with us to search for the monument, which was buried according to the latest recovery. All turned out well for us. A stranger arriving on a bad day for the husband or at a time when the wife was there alone would have had a negative experience to report after the fact.
I set a base station monument in a field at a "park" and that is a loose use of the term at a small town in ID a few years back, after about 2-3 days of use I come back one afternoon to find a note, basically some local resident that was on the park board extorted a fee for me to continue using the location which I paid to get the job completed. I suppose I should of asked before setting the point, but in a public area I thought I would be OK "trespassing". As I recall she was against the project and didn't think we should be using public property for financial gain, in the end it was cheaper to pay the couple hundred bucks and get done than argue.
SHG