We have a local job *yay!* in an area we recovered corners in 1999.
Crewster went out today to ensure they were still in place and to get shots to bring them to the current project datum...
Anyway he wheels up to a section corner location - it's in the driving lane of a residential road, in a monument box- and sees private survey crew there, occupying the point.
Box lid is off and they (2 of them) have a total station over it.
Crewster is happy!!! he figures they'll dig it out and he can come back later and tie it after they leave...
he goes to other corners and comes back about an hour later....
opens the lid and it's full to within an in of the top with water... he bails that out and still no monument... he digs down thru about 0.3' of settled muck and finally finds the old brass cap... ( he said the roadway was dry- no way the material could have run in there after a recovery 30 minutes prior)
He sets up for his first measurement and waits.... other crew comes back to the vic, don't say anything to him and pull a guard stake that they had stuck in the shoulder of the road.....
No logo on the truck and he didn't recognize either of them.....
... I'd wager that their COS will show Bearing to the second and distance to the hundreth......
I have surveyors who blow in from a long distance.... They found the steel guard stake, broken off, about 18" deep. They did not dig any more. About a foot south, is the old GLO aluminum monument. I helped my dad set it, a long time ago. The trouble is that they are the SECOND crew that did this. I buried a magnet next to the alum mon, and documented it. How do I feel about it? I don't care how far folks come from, I don't care what they do. BUT, to NOT SEARCH for a published Retracement monument?
I think they should go back home, and do their thing. Someplace else. Goobers up the public record.
N
Dang Mr File, you never popped a mon box to find it full up with dirt, snow, ice, mice, even McDonalds wrappers. Pretty common in these woods, so you dig it out.
When in doubt, skip the middle BS and just use the center of said box. Then hope the frost doesn't adjust it too much in your non-favor. Or you can hope it does... 😉
But those double triple three rail super surveyors that exist in the 0.001 ft universe... well just leave them alone. Their reality check is still pending.
Did the "private survey crew" see your guy's rig and, if so, are they sure it "water and muck" :-O
Are you guys government surveyors?
I tried to get one open about a month ago that was in the coastal area so rusted shut. I hammered until the top broke, at the last minute it broke in half and I heard a loud splash. I got a stick and it went down about 5 feet without touching bottom so I wondered what happened to the monument the guy said he used last year (?). I guess we are just supposed to set up over the center of the lids now?
> I tried to get one open about a month ago that was in the coastal area so rusted shut. I hammered until the top broke, at the last minute it broke in half and I heard a loud splash. I got a stick and it went down about 5 feet without touching bottom so I wondered what happened to the monument the guy said he used last year (?). I guess we are just supposed to set up over the center of the lids now?
That was the monument. Well set too. You went at least 5 feet down inside the pipe and so it was at least 5 feet long. That cap was well-seated until you beat on it and busted it off. (just kidding if it wasn't obvious).
I had a licensed surveyor who worked for me who would actually find a ring with the schoenstedt on the top of the asphalt and painted the spot and set up on the paint-mark. (he doesn't work for me anymore).
A shop I used to work for in here in Colorado had a process wherein the crews would come in each day, report to the Chief Of Parties what was accomplished that day, download their data and then copy their field notes from the current field book and put those copies in an "inbox", after which we (the office project managers) would collect them the next morning. I collected some of the notes one morning that consisted of a section breakdown with a nice sketch at one of the section corners being searched for showing the recovery of the 4 accessory ties shown on the monument record (with the field shot points numbers) and a shot where the section corner was supposed to be located, but marked as "depression in pavement-road recently repaved". It was a slower than usual morning, so I took the notes and in red pen drew stick figures of 2 guys with a pick and a bar digging at the "depression" with cones set around them and the truck with the light bar on in the travel lane, and put them back in the "outbox" for the crew for the next day. Never had that problem again- I hate short cuts 😉
:good:
Ha ha ha....lmao
Um....
What is a 'monument box' and why would you find one in the center of the road?
Um....
A monument box looks like a water valve box only there is a monument inside. The advantage of them is general engineering contractors treat them with more respect than just a rebar or pipe driven into the pavement.
Um....
I'll go with Dave here. Just think cold weather climate and snow plows. Nice little water valve type boxes (6" dia) that handle traffic well.
The story above about breaking one in half is just part of the story in the frozen tundra.... been there, done that, got that tee shirt.... right next to the manhole covers that decide they don't like getting beat to death with a sledge so you can open them and get the friggin inverts. grrrrr, and then you call DPW and tell them they have an open manhole with the lid parts in the bottom. Ask them nicely if you can get your cones back...:'(
Um....
I was at a fire station...the screw in monitoring well lid was stuck. The biggest fire fighter said, "I'll get it open." He took a 10lb sledge and WHAM! He shattered the lid into several pieces. It was in a lawn and scheduled to be plugged with concrete in a few days so they just covered it with a piece of plywood.
Well, it's clear what really happened. They needed 12 monuments. They had found the other 11 in pristine and easy-to-access condition. Those eleven fit better than the glove on OJ's hand, so they figured they really didn't need to see #12. Or, at least, that is what they were prepared to tell their boss if he ever questioned them.
For Joe: A quick trip to PLSSia would clear up that question quite simply. A very significant fraction of roadways are centered on section lines and aliquot lines, excluding arkeytexturally designed subdivisions. PS: I know you were just joking with us non-Colonial types.
> Did the "private survey crew" see your guy's rig and, if so, are they sure it "water and muck" :-O
:bad:
:poop:
😛
Um....
There were a few in Tucson that had a lid you had to rotate before you could lift it up, but if you didn't happen to know that (like me) you could pound and pull all day and not get it off. City crews finally broke off the flanges and solved that problem.
Um....
I've seen those.
This lid was actually threaded. Those can be a real bear if any grit gets in there at all.
We have monument boxes here as well. I'm surprised Joe doesn't have them up his way. In some of the older cities like Newark the monuments are set in the centerline of the street R/W. In Camden they are on or near the block corners at some offset. Some state highways have them as well.
> I tried to get one open about a month ago that was in the coastal area so rusted shut. I hammered until the top broke, at the last minute it broke in half and I heard a loud splash. I got a stick and it went down about 5 feet without touching bottom so I wondered what happened to the monument the guy said he used last year (?). I guess we are just supposed to set up over the center of the lids now?
Back when I was a mere survey pup we had a project where the corner was about 6 feet below grade. It was a large mall that was designed by our firm and we were surveying for an expansion. During construction the contractor, under the direction of our firm, had place an uncapped 6" pvc pipe over the monument before placing the 6 feet of fill. It was my job to dig all of the crap out of the pipe and get the shot. I ended up using a kitchen spoon acquired a a local shop and a bunch of lath lashed together. I took what seemed for ever to dig the damn thing out. My gruff old PC just had a blast watching my lay on my belly in the much and mire digging for the thing.
Maybe the monument was at 5'-6".
In this area it's common for people to actually file a corner certificate based on the paint spot. On the part of the form where you describe the monument found, it'll just say something like "magnetic indication below pavement". And then they have accessory ties and distances to adjacent corners to the nearest .01.
Once I dug up such an "indication" and found it to be a scrap of license plate. An entire residential subdivision of about 40 lots was based on this "corner". Meanwhile, a rebar monument was found about 5' north of the license plat. Like I said, common practice.
