Rant on.........
The feature story in the POB magazine this month dealt with a survey of a so-called dry lake bed in the middle-of-nowhere Utah. In my opinion, the article made the survey profession look very, very bad.
The survey was awarded to the "low bid" to someone who clearly had not inspected the worksite despite having an extreme interest in doing the work. The low bidder hounded the client, appearing to be begging for the job. The low bidder threw his entire office at one job. Airboats and helicopters were brought in to move workers who had planned to get there via four-wheelers and survey chariots. Either the "low bid" was an extremely high number or the featured survey company lost their corporate-shirt. Either way, this is embarrassing to anyone who attempts to price their work on what it is worth.
I saw nothing in the article in a positive sense relative to the profession of land surveying.
I read it too.
Reading between the lines it appears the client provided the helicopters and air boats. At least that is what I got out of it.
I wonder how stable those monuments will be? They drove those aluminum posts into the mud; doesn't seem like they will stay there.
On second thought, if you can't say something nice, then maybe I should just stut up.
Loyal
> I wonder how stable those monuments will be? They drove those aluminum posts into the mud; doesn't seem like they will stay there.
I was thinking the same.
I read it again. The article mentions rebar but the cap in the photo looks like a 3-1/2" cap on a 2" aluminum post so I'm not sure what they actually set.
The article is a little short on technical details.
It appears that they were doing an original survey, I think? I'm not sure, hard to tell. They aren't even doing a survey, just acting as technicians for BLM. Using BLM set coordinates.
I happen to know a little about Sevier Lake. I grew up not far from there. I was with the BLM crew in 1959 that did some surveying in that area. What follows is an excerpt from my "Surveying Stories" that I have tried to write from time to time. It is unedited and is written more for my children than for a surveying audience, but perhaps it will be interesting to some of you.
"While working out west of Delta we had a few incidents worthy of repeating. We were camping out at Black Rock, a railroad watering hole from the old steam engine days, that is between Milford and Delta. The surveys we were conducting were west of there out towards Sevier Lake. Sevier Lake was basically dry. The farmers at Delta had built a couple of dams to use the water for irrigation. The south end of the lake was dry enough to drive across at certain times of the year. As one progressed northerly toward the inlet the lake became wetter. Years ago a small plane had tried to land on the lake and much to the surprise of the pilot the area was wet and the plane remains there.
We would survey out as far as possible and set creosote soaked 4x4 posts hoping the salt from the lake would not eat them too quickly. We measured distance using a measuring tape that was about 1/8 inch wide and about half as thick. It had numbered brass sleeves soldered at the correct distances. The tape was called a chain. The unit of measurement used to survey the public lands in the USA comes from the British. The basic unit is called a ‘chain’. A chain is 66 feet long and is divided into 100 units called ‘links’. A mile is 80 chains long. The chain unit of distance measurement corresponds to the acre unit of area measurement; just as square feet and the distance measurement of feet go together. A square mile is 80 chains by 80 chains and equals 640 acres.
The chain tape would not pull through the wet mud of the lake and so we had to station survey personnel along the entire tape to lift it and move it along and then set it down. It was a slow task and very hard to get it set down just right. We were using an 8-chain tape, but eventually had to resort to a 2-chain tape to get anything done.
When the going got too deep the boss, Craig Sylvester, decided to try to use triangulation to arrive at the points. So transits were set at two points along the dry spots. One to direct the alignment of the person walking out in the mud and one a half mile at right angles to direct the distance at which to place the post along the line. I volunteered to be the first to try. I was carrying two of the 6 foot long posts and a canteen of water. The mud was covered by a crust of salt and as one walked you broke through the thin crust and then depending on the depth you just kept walking. The mud would be quite hot from the sun beating down on it. Every once in a while you would have to wiggle a leg to let air down along your leg to cool off. At the end of the mile the mud was knee deep and it took a lot of effort to move one foot in front of the other. There was no way to sit and rest. Anyway I made the mile out successfully and returned. So they decided to do another mile that way.
My friend, Pete, took the 2nd time out. Pete is only 5 ft. 3 ins. and I remember his canteen dragging in the mud as he walked out there. Having made the trip myself I knew how difficult it was. I kept my eye on him to see how he was doing and of course the transit kept him in sight at all times. Our only communication was waving a big piece of cloth flagging.
I again took a turn and I believe that is as close to dying as I ever want to get without the real thing. The heat is just unbearable and the sun glancing off the smooth surface just makes looking and walking so very difficult. The thought crossed my mind several times during this second trip to just lay down in the mud. If I had done so, it would have been the end. But we did not do that again. It was determined not to be worth the effort.
On another occasion Gary was driving the truck along with the survey supplies. He tried to drive where it was dry enough and most days was successful. This day however, he got a little too far and the wetness came up quickly on him. He turned toward shore which normally would be in the dry direction, but it never did get dry until right at the edge. The truck became stuck clear up to the axle. It was a 4x4 and had a winch on the front. We had no way to communicate with the other crew or the base camp.
We decided to try to winch our way out. The winch had about 100 feet of cable. So we dug a hole in the lake bed and buried some bundles or iron posts. Now the iron posts were about 30 inches long and were 2.5 inches in diameter. Each post had a brass cap attached to it and could be marked appropriately to indicate which corner or position it represented. The iron posts were bundled 3 to a bundle.
The first time we only buried the posts a couple of feet below the surface. The winch was started and it simply pulled the post toward the truck. So we did it again this time going deeper and putting some wood posts vertically in front of the bundles of pipe. This time we managed to get the truck moved a little.
Eventually we would dig holes deeper than a man’s head. Probably 6 or 7 feet deep. We would use a 5-gallon bucket to dig with at the deeper portions of the hole. We would get the truck moved only a few feet each time. And since the winch would pull the iron post bundles through the mud then we would have to dig them up as well as bury them.
Meanwhile Gary started walking the 15 miles or so back to camp. He probably got heat stroke because it was a long walk and had to cross over a small mountain range. He actually walked right off a road and landed in a wash one time. The entire crew had forgotten to fill canteens that day. Something like that is never forgotten, but this day we had very little water and I think Gary would have taken no more than a quart with him. We who stayed with the truck contemplated and even tried drinking the brackish water that would seep into the hole as we dug.
We eventually got the truck within one more winch of the solid shore. About that same time Craig arrived with the other truck. The cables from each truck were connected and the two vehicles were able to winch the stuck truck to the shore. Craig first tried to backup with the landed vehicle, but it broke an axle as he did that. So it was the winches that got the truck out. Then the one with the broken axle had to remain there and we all went back to camp in the one that had been stuck all day. Craig brought water to us and we sure were happy to see him A tow truck had to come from Delta to take the other truck in for repairs."
I went back there some 20 years or so later after a high water year and the entire lake bed where we had surveyed was full of water. Some years it is pretty dry and other years completely wet. I doubt any kind of metal monument will last long in that environment. I would be interested to see how the creosote soaked redwood posts held up.
Jerry
That is a great story.
That is the story they should publish.
That was GREAT Jerry!
I have also worked on Sevier Lake, and know EXACTLY what you are talking about.
The same can be said of MOST of the remnants of Lake Bonneville, Lake
Lahontan, and the several smaller Ice Lakes in the Great Basin.
It's NOT a good place for folks who spend most of their time DOWNTOWN.
🙂
Loyal
Thanks Loyal,
I have worked on other lakes in Utah and Nevada also. Even the really dry ones can be dangerous. They are smooth and flat and tolerate high driving speeds which as a youngster I occasionally did. But, going 60 mph and seeing a fissure ahead is not a pleasant feeling. One learns quickly how hard they can hit the brakes. Luckily, I was able to stop and I never did hit a fissure in a lake bed, but heard of others that did. I was lucky.
By the way, I enjoy your posts and have worked in many of the areas you mention.
Jerry
Jerry
Thank YOU Jerry!
And I hear ya... We have certainly stumbled across some of the same real estate over the years.
"They are smooth and flat and tolerate high driving speeds which as a youngster I occasionally did."
Been there, done that.
Ahhh...the Black Rock Desert comes to mind (among others)!
A zillion miles of “hard” surface that begs for a new land speed record.
But then there are those "hard-flat" lake beds that can turn into a THIN crust that won't support a man on foot (let alone a truck), under which is 10-12 thousand feet of gray snot and pablum.
Oh the humanity!
🙂
Loyal
> The article mentions rebar but the cap in the photo looks like a 3-1/2" cap on a 2" aluminum post so I'm not sure what they actually set.
The article also refers to the crew carrying "rods, tips, driving rod, hammers, cap..." Based upon that and the few photos that show monuments, I assume that they were setting something like the Berntsen Sectional Rod monument:
The photo on the first page of the article does show something that looks kind of like a flared pipe monument (it also looks like it was just discharged from the rodman's backside), but it may be something else.
A lot of water run down there this year. I live in the upper reaches of the Sevier River basin. I haven't been there but I'd guess all those monuments are under water this year. Instead of a helicopter you'd need a submarine to do the survey this year.
I know it's standard policy to have monuments to mark land. But in this case I'd say its a waste. This mud hole (Sevier Lake) should be treated like the bottom of the ocean. Modern coordinates should suffice except for the interface with private land. Anybody going looking for one of the corner monuments is going to need the coordinates and a GPS to find the marker. So why waste the effort to set the markers?
Bet they didn't mark any bearing trees or any swing ties either. I suppose you could have pushed in a few DEEP-1 magnets.
Jerry, that story sounded JUST LIKE SURVEYING!!
🙂
Thanks!
N
This is a great story Jerry!I'm sure your kids would love reading them. P.S: You just gave me an idea. I'd like to start a journal for my kids too - something they could read when they grow up so they'll know more about me.
So they probably added rods and kept driving until there was some resistance.
It will corrode away in a few years.
I started a journal back in 1990, and have kept at it. I used to make entries every few days, now I do so when I think of it. Some times 3 to 4 months apart. But I also add photographs, news clippings, family gatherings, fish stories. When I went to Morocco twice for work, and twice for pleasure, I kept a daily journal. My grandaughter typed it, so I could save it on the computer. Then I added photographs to it to accompany the text.
I hope a decendent enjoys all of the journals, but If not, I won't know it.
I agree, I didn't read the article, but I hardly see the point in setting monuments in the situation described. Geodetic coordinates were used to set the monuments ... IMO, Geodetic coordinates are "good enough" to define corner locations on a muddy lake bottom.
