Kent McMillan, post: 405812, member: 3 wrote: So, the State of Alaska is going to sell the lands that the United States patents to it for more than $650/per acre, but doesn't want to spend any money actually surveying the land? Similarly, someone who has more than $100k to spend on some remote 1/4 section of recreational land that is only accessible by helicopter will be bankrupted if a surveyor takes two trips to survey it?
Well, if the land will never need to be surveyed by a land surveyor and handheld accuracies are more than adequate for recreational uses, why is this a problem if the whole deal isn't just a make-work scheme for land surveyors?
I don't know that it is a problem. I think it will take a few court cases to solve problems that come up that are unique to this system, but I think this is the future of land boundaries. As we have learned from FrancisH it is already reality in some places.
aliquot, post: 405816, member: 2486 wrote: I don't know that it is a problem. I think it will take a few court cases to solve problems that come up that are unique to this system, but I think this is the future of land boundaries. As we have learned from FrancisH it is already reality in some places.
Well, just to keep this in the realm of reality, if the federal government set monuments every two miles on the township boundaries, what is the cost of putting a survey party on the ground to spend a couple of days locating the corners and marking the lines of some 1/4 section in the interior of the township? Isn't that going to be so high that even the land surveyors will want to use decimeter-accuracy techniques utilizing satellite-based differential corrections similar to what OmniStar offers?
If that's the case, it only makes sense to start off by defining the tract corners by geodetic coordinates,
Kent McMillan, post: 405819, member: 3 wrote: Well, just to keep this in the realm of reality, if the federal government set monuments every two miles on the township boundaries, what is the cost of putting a survey party on the ground to spend a couple of days locating the corners and marking the lines of some 1/4 section in the interior of the township? Isn't that going to be so high that even the land surveyors will want to use decimeter-accuracy techniques utilizing satellite-based differential corrections similar to what OmniStar offers?
If that's the case, it only makes sense to start off by defining the tract corners by geodetic coordinates,
With the old method the state would preform an ASCS (Alaska State Cadastral Survey) before they patented the land. I am unsure if they will no longer do this or are saying it will be too expensive in the future.
JKinAK, post: 405727, member: 7219 wrote: I would expect that many of the unanticipated problems won't be known for many years.
Just as was/is the case with RTK. Lots of button-pushers who bought both the shiny new equipment and the salesman's glowing description of the "GPS total station" went forth and blithely started reporting positions that weren't actually very close to what was in the ground. The problems crop up now and again when someone with actual measurement expertise locates some of this work. Some of these problems are easy to solve, some more complicated and expensive, but the problems do get dealt with. I expect the same would pertain to whatever new regime gets implemented in AK.
Kent McMillan, post: 405819, member: 3 wrote: Well, just to keep this in the realm of reality, if the federal government set monuments every two miles on the township boundaries, what is the cost of putting a survey party on the ground to spend a couple of days locating the corners and marking the lines of some 1/4 section in the interior of the township? Isn't that going to be so high that even the land surveyors will want to use decimeter-accuracy techniques utilizing satellite-based differential corrections similar to what OmniStar offers?
If that's the case, it only makes sense to start off by defining the tract corners by geodetic coordinates,
Sure - that's how they start off under the current PLSS system - on protraction diagrams. Then you set monuments.
I'm still wondering:
JKinAK, post: 405750, member: 7219 wrote: So KentÛ? There is no doubt that with enough infrastructure development and education and legal support and money, DPPS can be cobbled together ÛÒ itÛªs a new system and it itÛªs nowhere turnkey. It certainly isnÛªt what BLM is marketing it to be (attached). Why, when all of the other PLSS states received the monumentation that was agreed upon (and some of that monumentation was in VERY remote land at the time it was planted), should ONE state be burdened with the cost and effort to be the proving ground for something as questionable as DPPS?
That's it for me until after Christmas - Merry Christmas to all.
JKinAK, post: 405872, member: 7219 wrote: Sure - that's how they start off under the current PLSS system - on protraction diagrams. Then you set monuments.
And Happy Holidays to you, too, but isn't the idea that any monument within a decimeter of the coordinates of the corner will be equally good for practical purposes and that if land use of remote lands is likely to require better accuracy in monument placement, then future land owners can pay the freight?
I'm envisioning these tracts as completely unlikely to be fenced or used in some way that requires that boundaries be known with less uncertainty than a foot or two. Obviously, if this isn't the case, then the coordinate-based township plat of low-value land isn't nearly as efficient as would seem.
I would like to hear what Mr. Moistner has to offer on the subject.
paden cash, post: 405885, member: 20 wrote: I would like to hear what Mr. Moistner has to offer on the subject.
I would expect that Daryl will be averse to the prospect of landowners not needing him to ride a helicopter to a toe in landing on a mountainside so that he can hop out, install a post and tablet markers with rocks piled around it to hold it in place, take some bearings with a pocket compass, and ride out on the return to some distant office where the invoice is to be due for payment in OPM dollars.
This is exactly the scenario we discussed a few years ago when I wondered why in the world it made any rational sense to build a corner on the side of a mountain just so that some client would know that the corner was marked there once upon a time if they ever decided to climb the mountain.
Kent McMillan, post: 405887, member: 3 wrote: I would expect that Daryl will be averse to the prospect of landowners not needing him to ride a helicopter to a toe in landing on a mountainside so that he can hop out, install a post and tablet markers with rocks piled around it to hold it in place, take some bearings with a pocket compass, and ride out on the return to some distant office where the invoice is to be due for payment in OPM dollars.
This is exactly the scenario we discussed a few years ago when I wondered why in the world it made any rational sense to build a corner on the side of a mountain just so that some client would know that the corner was marked there once upon a time if they ever decided to climb the mountain.
I hadn't even thought that far into it. I was just wondering about some of the pros and cons of setting corners in inaccessible areas.
There is surely a need to mark any boundary. Its positional accuracy and the arguments that follow are to me secondary to the need of some sort of formal (and accepted) boundary delineation. I'm sure Daryl has seen first hand some of the troubles that develop from multiple interpretations of coordinate and protracted lines.
paden cash, post: 405888, member: 20 wrote: I hadn't even thought that far into it. I was just wondering about some of the pros and cons of setting corners in inaccessible areas.
There is surely a need to mark any boundary. Its positional accuracy and the arguments that follow are to me secondary to the need of some sort of formal (and accepted) boundary delineation. I'm sure Daryl has seen first hand some of the troubles that develop from multiple interpretations of coordinate and protracted lines.
I had said that if necessary the reference would be set within 1 mile of the corner. With todays ease of coordinate use, no one should have a problem.
Paul in PA
paden cash, post: 405888, member: 20 wrote: There is surely a need to mark any boundary. Its positional accuracy and the arguments that follow are to me secondary to the need of some sort of formal (and accepted) boundary delineation.
I get the idea that these remote tracts are mostly to be used as hunting camps. With that in mind, isn't +/-10 ft. in boundary locations "right on the money"?
Kent McMillan, post: 405899, member: 3 wrote: I get the idea that these remote tracts are mostly to be used as hunting camps. With that in mind, isn't +/-10 ft. in boundary locations "right on the money"?
I was just thinking along the lines of the school of thought that in a PLSS legal environment the 'original' monument has no error. And unless we want to toss out 200 years of case law, some sort of original demarcation would probably be in order. Plus or minus10 feet is fine with me, most of the PLSS fabric was put together with +/- a chain or two.
And if hunting camps are at the bottom of the priority list; where should we put almost inhabitable West Texas grazing lands? For animals I would think plus or minus 50' might be appropriate. With the train of thought that the present day use of lands is proportional to the accuracy of the survey, why do you put so much into retracements of bleak Texas ranch lands? We have no way of determining future use of lands. A piece of 'hunting camp' should receive the same scrutiny as a remote radar installation.
My point being that land use, whether for domestic settlement, oil and gas interests or logging, should have some sort of monumentation with which to start. And I'm by no means saying each and every quarter corner needs a monument. What I am saying is: To keep the courts from being clogged up ad infinitum some sort of control needs to be agreed upon. And if the first corner set in a section was placed with some sort of positional error, its location should be defended as the original. Otherwise we throw the entire area into chaos. That is the model with which the PLSS has been maintained since its conception. That's the only point I wanted to make.
And Merry Christmas to you all!
Kent McMillan, post: 405899, member: 3 wrote: I get the idea that these remote tracts are mostly to be used as hunting camps. With that in mind, isn't +/-10 ft. in boundary locations "right on the money"?
As it stands now there are many areas such as around Denali National Park, where boundaries are protracted and poorly marked, if at all, where a hunter can get himself in a lot of hot water, vehicle and firearm confiscation, thousands in fines for crossing one of these boundaries. Park rangers will confiscate the offenders GPS and use the data inside to prove trespass. There's a real double standard to where as a private property owner I'm required to have my monumented boundary posted every 100', but the Feds can draw imaginary protracted lines on a map and prosecute me for accidently straying over them with zero in the way of responsibility on their part for putting me on notice.
@ Willawaw
Most every National park, COE lake and Wildlife preservation started out as lines on a USGS topo map and were given scaled and calculated monument locations to arrive at the dimensions for a boundary.
Some have been measured on the ground in terrible fashion and intrude upon actual private lands everywhere and have left voids elsewhere.
Then others were surveyed very, very well to the correct monuments.
My take is that whatever the system they decide to declare where the boundaries will fall is of no use until there is a functional system in place to work from that will assure that any survey can make the correct location with the products we have in play today.
Like having to put our chains and tapes on the shelf and move into Total Stations, the Alaska frontier is so vast and remote the need is that there to be one basic procedure that will work for every GPS unit in play.
Whatever system Alaska decides upon must be up and running and capable of delivering the same reliable day after day results by every Surveyor with a GPS unit in play today.
IMVHO, every monument has only one location, the original, and that most of my career has been to define that location in the best repeatable means possible with the tools I have with me.
Lawmakers come up with all these new rules and never care about whether it can be done or not.
They see revenue from all those that fail attempting to follow these dreams.
paden cash, post: 405917, member: 20 wrote: I was just thinking along the lines of the school of thought that in a PLSS legal environment the 'original' monument has no error. And unless we want to toss out 200 years of case law, some sort of original demarcation would probably be in order. Plus or minus10 feet is fine with me, most of the PLSS fabric was put together with +/- a chain or two.
Isn't the modern situation, though, that geodetic coordinates are more stable than monuments in many instances? Considering that the most valuable monuments are those that are both stable and accessible, it only makes sense to put the effort into establishing reference monuments that meet those criteria and spend the money saved on stabbing monuments into the tundra on something with greater long-term utility.
paden cash, post: 405917, member: 20 wrote: And if hunting camps are at the bottom of the priority list; where should we put almost inhabitable West Texas grazing lands? For animals I would think plus or minus 50' might be appropriate. With the train of thought that the present day use of lands is proportional to the accuracy of the survey, why do you put so much into retracements of bleak Texas ranch lands? We have no way of determining future use of lands. A piece of 'hunting camp' should receive the same scrutiny as a remote radar installation.
That is exactly why the coordinate-based township makes so much sense. When at some time in the future anyone needs to know within less than a meter or two where the boundaries of a tract are on the ground, then that tract can be located directly from the original evidence of the NSRS. The grossly inefficient solution would be to try to spend boatloads of federal money to mark every corner in a township with an uncertainty of +/-2cm only to discover that the long-term stability of the monuments was poor.
The beauty of a coordinate-based scheme is that it is efficient and durable. There's nothing to prevent a landowner from hiring a surveyor to mark the lines and corners of a tract at accuracies rangine from +/-1cm to +/-1m. The corner doesn't move if the surveyor makes a blunder and so all adjoining landowners's rights are secured.
If this land is to sell for more than half a million per section (hard to believe, but that's what the land values mentioned work out to), I'm sure that any landowner who wants to know exactly where every 100 ft. of the boundaries of his land are will be able to find a surveyor to tell him.
The problem one deals with in West Texas is (a) the original surveys were poorly documented, often containin purely fictitious calls, and what was actually surveyed was generally done without anything resembling great care. Neither of the conditions would apply to a modern coordinate-based township where the original record should be complete and the original survey without any significant errors. There just is no avoiding the advantages to the advancements in surveying technology that are most likely going to continue to develop.
Am I alone in being shocked and amazed that Kent seems to be lobbying for coordinates over monuments as controlling features? Wow.
In theory, its not a terrible plan. In reality, its going to be ugly, as John mentioned.
Maybe not right at first, as I'm sure these "surveys" will go just fine from the BLM's perspective, and they can wash their hands of any problems that come up later.
Maybe not even once others (State/Private surveyors) first go out and establish some of the first protracted boundaries based on the coordinates established by BLM...
But once there is a patchwork of surveys out there things will get real ugly. Much like the age-old arguments on this board about "rebar vs. pipe", or in this case "which dimple on which pincushion best positions the called-for coordinate..." (And that is without even considering the whole "seismically active" issue where we are constantly trying to determine which CORS station we can "trust" more than the others...)
Put me down on the "this is not ready for prime-time" side. Protraction 2.0, as I like to call it...
If you are not ready for this then please throw away you GNSS receivers and precise total stations, as you are not ready for surveying.
Paul in PA
Bob Keiner, post: 406145, member: 9916 wrote: m I alone in being shocked and amazed that Kent seems to be lobbying for coordinates over monuments as controlling features? Wow
I have to agree with Kent, even though it rubs some of my grain wrong.
The environment Alaska provides, seems to be a good test bed for such a plan... Because permafrost runs deep. Monument stability in permafrost, with the sun warming the top few inches (tenths) of a metal survey mark, on a 24 hr rotational basis, would surely make for an issue, with natural monument migration.
[USER=236]@Paul in PA[/USER]
What I have seen is that in a group, most surveyors come to the same conclusions around the same point.
In practice, what I have found is that individually, their locations fall within a 10 meter circle of error.
Not everyone uses the same equipment, geoids and an assortment of other decisions to meet their time requirements.
Most collect in one basis and will translate and deliver in another basis because, in Texas for example, there is no specified one way to report the data.
Every time I follow RTK, I find something amiss, mostly within a foot or tenths of direct TS measurements and sometimes great blunders of 20ft.
Many times it is because they located the center of a fence corner and their monument has been set to one side and sometimes it is just wrong.
I also believe that in the great vastness of Alaska getting close will be desirable by most.
Hopefully, there will be a system in place to get better than close by everyone.
The responsibility of having and providing a reliable GPS reference system is not in hands of the surveyor and that is the one thing they need in place before they can define their requirements.
For most of America, it is a per surveyor choice of what system they operate on a day to day basis and will then translate that to the client's request.
Maybe they will make history and get it right for once.
[USER=81]@A Harris[/USER] ,
If they set up calibration, or indexing stations, so that a surveyor can check himself, against a known point, this can be blunder checked, to HELP mitigate this many-faceted component.
