> Yes you did. The issue of if it was proper aside the problem it creates is that you leave behind uncertainty to settle where there was none previously.
So actually finding where the lawful boundary is creates "uncertainty"? That's another idea that doesn't pass the laugh test.
>It makes the profession look silly.
Yes, who would think that professional surveyors can actually find where boundaries run? Fails the laugh test again.
> If you feel you have correctly identified the corner than get permission by the coterminous landowners to clear up the dispute by removing the offending mark.
No, the original pipe isn't on the highway boundary, but even though it is mistaken, it is evidence that probably bears on the locations of the lots as marked by the 1958 surveyor. That is why the pipe should be left in place. It is the controlling monument on the common side line of the lots even if it isn't on the highway right-of-way.
>I always hear reasons for not removing marks like its against the law. It may be against the law to remove a corner monument but you have identified that this was not a corner monument.
The point is that it is has the special status of being an original witness monument. If it were six feet back from the corner, the situation might be clearer, but it was far enough into the right-of-way that the actual intersection of the highway line and the side lot line could be monumented.
> Closing corner monuments are only valid in certain circumstances for closing PLSS corners, nowhere else.
That is only true if you disregard quite a few principles of settled law, such as the control of original monuments. In this case, the original pipe controls the side lot line, but obviously not the extent of the State's title in the right-of-way. It's a witness corner. This is not at all an uncommon situation.
>If you are certain enough to stand behind your location than finish the job. One mark per corner is the professional service. Anything more is unprofessional.
In the case Carl has described, removing ORIGINAL evidence would be unprofessional. The pipe is ORIGINAL evidence of where the lots were laid out, but not of where the highway boundary is.
Kent, we get hung up on numbers. I think we can all agree that if the pipe was off 10' we wouldn't use it. It works the other way also. I think we can all agree that if it was off 0.01', the monument should stand. There is no magic number when a corner should be used or rejected. In my opinion, 0.14 feet is close enough.
As usual, there is not always a "correct" answer when we survey. This is one of those situations. If I came along behind Carl, had a copy of his plat, I sure wouldn't ignore what he did. If another survey chose to use the pipe, I would accept that result also.
You asked the question.
Still a pincushion to me, all day and all night long.
You can't wave your surveyor wand and make it a witness corner. I find this a bit ludicrous.
Since the State highway r-o-w is stated to be sacrosanct here by you and others and you chose a few of the monuments to hold and fit to your survey then I wonder... just how are those monuments holding to the 120' r-ow across the Hwy. Agreement?
How is your software comparing to the slide rules of years past?
I rarely find old curve data fitting to modern software applied to field data
How stable are those markers? They are always getting bopped around by maintenance here.
I also applaud and acknowledge you for posting this. It took real cajones and it looks you did a good job if everything was calibrated, settings correct and adjusted. Was this an RTK job?
So in the end, I would have held the pipe and shown the super duper magical calculated position of the expert measuring.
This is how the world works here.
You did pincushion!
I think this discussion is between those who measure with machine tool accuracy and those who follow the law.
For crying out loud, land surveying is not about precise measurements to monuments that have been in the ground for many years; and then reject them because they are not in the realm of micrometer measurements.
Who said that you cannot infringe on the State ROW by a foot? Who said you cannot bend a senior line with a junior monument by a foot?
Show a court case, like an Appeals Court case that is concerned with this kind of measurement.
The monument found and rejected is not a witness corner, is not a closing corner and is not a corner for one side of the line. It is/was the corner monument that is showing all landowners where their boundary is and was put there by a surveyor who had the instruments necessary and the knowledge necessary and the ability necessary to establish the boundary.
Land surveying is simply not control surveying; never was and never will be!
This bogus opinion about "you can't sell what you don't own" has apparently spilled over into the bogus opinion that "you cannot adversely set a monument within the State ROW" Who says?
If you think about it for a minute and a half, you also know that you cannot have adverse rights against the Federal Public Land either; and does that mean that you cannot bend a senior line through a junior 1/16th corner that has been in the ground for years and used by both sides? Hell NO!
Throw away the damn measuring device Manual and get out some law books and some written text books on how to survey land boundaries.
Keith
> I think we can all agree that if the pipe was off 10' we wouldn't use it. It works the other way also. I think we can all agree that if it was off 0.01', the monument should stand. There is no magic number when a corner should be used or rejected. In my opinion, 0.14 feet is close enough.
>
> As usual, there is not always a "correct" answer when we survey. This is one of those situations.
Actually, there is a pretty obviously correct answer in the case Carl described. It is that the boundary of the State's paramount title in the highway isn't determined by the iron pipe. What I think some surveyors are hung up on is confusing the time savings of fudging the position of the pipe over the more correct decision that Carl made to actually mark the corner at the intersection of the right-of-way line and the side lot line.
As far as the fudgery goes, the relevant question is this: if you were building valuable improvements in relation to the highway boundary, would you want to mislocate them by 0.14 ft. because you felt that was "close enough"?
Norn is 100 percent right!
These pincushion corner monuments make land surveyors look silly. A landowner will look at those and simply shake their heads about surveyors who can't agree to simple monument controlled land boundaries.
I frankly don't see why you guys, who set these pin cushion monuments, don't simply pull those "erroneous" monuments and set your exact "true" monument? If you were setting an iron post or concrete post, you would be digging it up anyway, so throw it away.
Keith
I bet when "he who shall not be mentioned" from Texas reads your post he is going to flip out.
Lets just hope his prescriptions are up to date.
That certain Texas surveyor will never agree with my opinions anyway as he ONLY accepts original monuments and micrometer measurements between them.;-)
Keith
Now you know I am NOT talking about Kent, don't you?
Kent did come to my mind.:-P
Yeah, Kent should have 'advised' Carl to place a punch mark on that rebar.
😉
> I bet when "he who shall not be mentioned" from Texas reads your post he is going to flip out.
Not really. Hasn't Keith admitted long ago that he hasn't been a licensed surveyor for decades? Given his opinions, who would find that surprising? What does surprise me is that anyone would taken anything Keith has to say about virtually any surveying topic seriously.
For sure. Why would we assign and credibility to a former BLM lead surveyor when we have the wisdom of a self glorified serial poster to fall back on.
I can only smile and know that Kent would spout something similar!
Keith
> For sure. Why would we assign and credibility to a former BLM lead surveyor when we have the wisdom of a self glorified serial poster to fall back on.
Actually, as I recall, Keith said he had comparatively little field experience. Certainly, his comments about the elementary operations of running lines and measuring distances are consistent with that. So, sure, if you consider riding a desk and memorizing the 1973 Manual of Surveying Instructions to be any sort of general experience, by all means pay no attention to those of us who have actually surveyed in in the private sector in the real world where boundaries actually matter.
Pincushion?
Did you pin cushion?.....Yes.
Were you wrong?......Maybe not.
You stated "4 of 6 Monuments are tight to plans (0.08') at 1100'+. The two that I am directly between, I held one and the next falls about 0.06' off, across the back."
You already have an uncertainty of between 0.06 and0.08, from what it sounds like.
0.08 in one direction might actually put you on the edge of that pipe.
How close is "close enough"?
Kent
He actually believes that 30 years of running an instrument is equal to experience in the headquarters office of BLM which had the final interpretation of the Manual and responded to every kind of complaint about land surveying.
I am sure I could dig up an answer from that office, to some technical question from the field about setting corner monuments beside an existing monument. But would not be worth the trouble.
At one point, I was the only GS-15, Land Surveyor in the United States Government.
Keith
Kent
> He actually believes that 30 years of running an instrument is equal to experience in the headquarters office of BLM which had the final interpretation of the Manual and responded to every kind of complaint about land surveying.
Actually, what I believe is that thirty years of actual surveying experience in all areas of practice, including field work, puts the opinions of a guy who rode a desk in a federal office dealing mostly with federal lands into their proper cubicle when the real world is under discussion.
If you want to declaim about matters outside your experience or expertise, you should expect others to point out the quite limited basis for them. You've never been licensed to survey in a metes and bounds state, for example, and seem wholly ignorant on the subject.
Kent
I'm just guessing here, but I bet a skyscraper isn't located on this lot within 0.14' of the boundary line. I can't imagine the state or county or who ever owns this right of way coming back on a landowner and asking them to remove 0.14' of paving or some other kind of improvement.
Kent, how would feel knowing some surveyor in the future pulled one of your pins because he decided it was off 0.004' He would say something like "that Kent must have had a bad day when he set this corner". Maybe in the future these kind of exact measurements will be possible and they will make us look like hacks.
Now imagine talking to a survey that was born in 1850, and asking him if 0.14' is enough of a error to set a new corner. My guess is he would laugh at how silly that would seem.
Most landowners and courts don't care about such percise measurements. They just want to know where their corner is.
An old surveyor told me years ago. Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a soap stone and cut it with a meat ax.
