> Did you call the BLM office and inform them of the original corner. If not call them Monday and rattle some chains. Nobody likes bad work hanging around.
I should send you the documentation of what I found in a bogus 1967 BLM dependently resurveyed Township I did some work in when I was in business in Wyoming. I sent all my findings to the BLM in 1984 and it's now been 30+ years and still no contact from them to make a field trip. They were supposedly to meet with me in 1985 and take a look at what original monuments and other data I recovered, but they never have. I sent them copies of all the info on my surveys, all the various maps I came up with, so they had all the items to let them know that they needed to go back in there and redo the whole Township. Since then my client has passed away and his ranch is now under different ownership,and all the BLM guys that were there are either retired or dead.
I've got a 1926 survey (notes and map) where it appears the County Surveyor averaged the measured measured and record distance to a rear lot corner original 3x3 stake that he found. Very weird. In other words, 186 record, 188 measured, 187 map distance. Per his sketch the fences fit the found stakes.
This is a 1912 hilly area subdivision of large lots.
The way he did it was traverse on record angle and distance to point then measure offsets to the found stake. It appears his traverse point is the current boundary corner as if he never monumented his final answer and the property owners perpetuated his stake or a later surveyor set the corner at record bearing and distance.
Did you read all the notes?
Several times from beginning to end
Anytime the BLM rejects a monument the reason should be in the notes, not necessarily in the same place as the call. Sometimes you will find it at the beginning in the history of surveys section.
From the notes:
Each recovered position established by xxx(the 1958 survey)was carefully evaluated and judgments were made as to the validity of these monuments are summarized in the following field notes.
Was there a record for the 1950's corner. How much of the section is federal interest? Why were they doing the survey?
The 1958 survey was done for the boundary of a National Monument. One side is Monument land the other private. This is a resurvey of the National Monument Boundary requested by the ancestors of those buried there.
Is midpoint and proportional distance the same thing on this line? yes
BLM training in emphatic that proportioning is an absolute last resort.
This is the Eastern States Office which I understand has a reputation for rejecting non-BLM monuments. This is only one of dozens of non-BLM monuments not used in this survey. Reasons given are using improper control or as in this example the 1958 surveyor intended to set it where a new measurement places it.
I have to question if the Eastern State Office practices what is emphatically trained if that is indeed the case. There is another area in this same resurvey that resurveyed an interior section mostly in private ownership as though it had never had a sub divisional survey. In doing so about a dozen monuments were not used the reason being improper control. The only thing improper that stands out to my inspection is that it doesn't fit new measurements. None of the interior monuments that were rejected are more than a few feet away from the new monument. Some are about a foot different. The entire interior resurvey is based on proportion and median bearings where there was lotting against a meandered river.
To be fair I need to acknowledge that a few 1958 monuments on exterior section lines were accepted. There was no remaining evidence of any original government survey corners on any corners of this resurvey so something somewhere of local acceptance had to be used to get started.
> The line was drawn at procedure, improper procedure dose not protect rights, private and public.
Are state BLM offices allowed to make their own set of rules, or are they required to follow the law and the "rules" as laid out in the BLM Manual?
It would appear that in the past too many BLM offices were allowed to make it up as they went. I would hope this is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
One of several on point quotes from the Manual:
"A decision to set aside previously fixed local survey legal subdivision corners must be supported by evidence that goes beyond mere demonstration of technical error, reasonable discrepancies between former and new measurement, and less than strict adherence to restoration and subdivision rules. Were the Federal Government obliged to open the question as to the location of a particular tract or tracts over technical differences or reasonable discrepancies, controversies would constantly arise, and resurveys and readjudication would be interminable. The law gives these activities repose."
> Procedure protects rights
> Accuracy protects position
> Without both you have nothing.
Really?
> The office, BLM Oregon State Office, I worked for bent over backwards to accept surveys. The line was drawn at procedure, improper procedure dose not protect rights, private and public.
That notion conflicts with the Oregon Court of Appeals in Dykes v. Arnold.
Wow, Im glad I don't have to deal with Eastern states office. We usually have the opposite problem here. They seem to accept even obvious screw ups that have not been relied on.
Arizona DOT set monuments on "approximate" fractional lines for decades. It was "too expensive" to set them properly...
Arizona office does the same, although it has not always been that way.
I've known surveyors that have had their monuments pulled by BLM surveyors, tossed aside and replaced with the BLM's. I've also seen BLM do a dependent resurvey and set a new section corner 10' away from the 1918 GLO corner, leaving the original in place. All documented in their notes, never mind everything done in last sixty years agrees with original location. Send you the BLM notes if you want.
> To little information to give a defiant answer. But from the information and my experience, the only reason the BLM rejected the 58 monument was improper procedure. The BLM I worked for is a stickler for procedure.
>
> Here is how I looked at the P's
>
> Procedure protects rights
> Accuracy protects position
> Without both you have nothing.
The more I think about this, the more important I think this becomes. I've re-read the Manual and cannot find any reference to such a simple standard. One would think if the "rules" are really that simple, the government could have saved a bunch of ink and paper by just simply stating what you have posted. Why didn't they? Maybe I've just missed them?
You say you are a former BLMer, and this was standard procedure in your state office? It makes one wonder how many landowners were negatively affected by these questionable "standards"?
I wonder how many current BLM offices are currently operating under the same "standards"? Are they willing to publicly admit to this?
To quote a wise old bird, "We may never know".
Thomas Jefferson's system is both a blessing and a curse. Unfortunately for us, the curse is in the aftertaste.
