Don't set a PK Nail in Grimes County, Texas

I have mostly stopped setting monuments in county roads, dirt, paved or oiled unless the client is present and insists that I do.
Setting a suitable offset rod outside of the maintained road area and note location in property description and drawing is sufficient.
One day going around a curve in a dirt road I picked up a RR spike in the back right tire and before I could stop it had whooped the rear fender rather severely.
The monuments in pavement and oiled surfaces have a way of raising out and causing damages and need to be beaten down again.

We would be in one heck of a mess as most of our section corners and quarter corners are in some sort of road, i.e., state, county, township, city. They would have to lock me up and add a charge of beating the snot out of some dumbbutt Barney Fife type if I was told to cease and desist.

This is more about hair-on-fire Nimbys opposing rail and going after surveyors as the evil agents of the railroad. They also sued over paint marks on the asphalt, so 3 nails is not really the issue.

These are the same folks who tried to impose a surveying permit fee to block and harass surveyors.

At least the folks in that county can sleep well tonight knowing they have all those gents and their razor sharp intellect keeping them safe.

The video just confirms some opinions I have about Texas lawmakers in general.

paden cash, post: 427753, member: 20 wrote: The video just confirms some opinions I have about Texas lawmakers in general.

Actually, Grimes County is in EAST TEXAS, which is a whole 'nother State (of Mind).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Texas

A Harris, post: 427766, member: 81 wrote: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Texas

Except even Wikipedia recognizes that Grimes County is in East Texas, not Central Texas. Having spent some time there, I know that Grimes is definitely not Central Texas material. It's beyond the Pine Curtain.
'">

In WV we set offsets. There is no point in tearing up a perfectly good road just for a corner that can be referenced just as easily with offset monuments.

Geeez. How much faster did you want to get to Houston ?

That's what I thought.

Just yesterday I made a foot deep crater in a county road recovering a RR spike set in 1975. Normally I avoid that, having been cursed and threatened with arrest by certain humorless highway superintendents. However, in the instant case, this spike was the only original mark left from a survey which defined an agreed on common line with my client's property - that and some building ties allow a somewhat shaky retracement, but hey, prove me wrong.

I never set centerline control any more, and very seldom see any noted as set on my colleagues drawings, either.

Certain places in the southern part of Central Florida, a deep cutout is the only point you can somewhat rely on. Offsets sure, but you still have to recover and occupy those points. The heavily landscaped right of ways are impossible to occupy and the landscapers dig up the rods and "put them back in the hole". Damn surveyors...

I do more photo control than most people, probably a few thousand points a year. I do not set anything like a nail or spike when painting a target. And, if at all possible, I prefer to survey a photo identity (sidewalk corner, stop bar corner, etc) over painting a target. However, a portable target (i.e. vinyl) does require setting large spikes at the corners. But those are few and usually only in rural areas. I try to avoid those if at all possible because they are prone to disappearing prior to flight if in an area where people can see them. I laugh when I see a portable panel set and they put high stakes around it. That is just inviting someone to tear it up. I like the hiking mantra...take only pictures, leave only footsteps. A good photo identity serves that well. Get in, survey, get out. Don't cause any problems.

I do not understand why some surveyors insist on painting targets even when there are perfectly good photo identities all around, which I see happen a lot.

There was one jurisdiction in Westchester county, NY (City of Rye, I think it was) that actually made us "erase" painted targets. Also we were reprimanded in Wyoming for painting a target on a state highway.

Got to watch out for some of those Texas counties

[MEDIA=youtube]adADHltRB6g[/MEDIA]

Reminds me of this recent news here in NJ. If you read it make sure you read the "comments" also.

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2016/05/residents_claim_trespassing_by_penneast_in_new_law.html

John Hamilton, post: 427788, member: 640 wrote: I do more photo control than most people, probably a few thousand points a year. I do not set anything like a nail or spike when painting a target. And, if at all possible, I prefer to survey a photo identity (sidewalk corner, stop bar corner, etc) over painting a target. However, a portable target (i.e. vinyl) does require setting large spikes at the corners. But those are few and usually only in rural areas. I try to avoid those if at all possible because they are prone to disappearing prior to flight if in an area where people can see them. I laugh when I see a portable panel set and they put high stakes around it. That is just inviting someone to tear it up. I like the hiking mantra...take only pictures, leave only footsteps. A good photo identity serves that well. Get in, survey, get out. Don't cause any problems.

I do not understand why some surveyors insist on painting targets even when there are perfectly good photo identities all around, which I see happen a lot.

There was one jurisdiction in Westchester county, NY (City of Rye, I think it was) that actually made us "erase" painted targets. Also we were reprimanded in Wyoming for painting a target on a state highway.

I worked in the field here in NJ for 20 years before transitioning to the office. Back in the 80's we mostly surveyed large tracts for major subdivisions to feed the building boom and most of the topo and planemetrics were done via aerial photography. Rarely were we tasked to locate picture points unless a painted or paper target could not be located in the photos. That practice still holds true to this day in my area.
Never once have I been asked to the State, County or any local government remove or black out a target in 33 years of practice. I guess it just depends on where you are working.

When it comes to setting a PK, Mag nail or painted target, I question how that could be viewed as damaging. If anything, it could be beneficial to the County to have the control values of those points for their own future use as I'm sure the work is being done on State Plane.
It seems to me, as somebody mentioned above, this is strictly a case on NIMBY. Just another obstructionist measure to try and hamper the project.
When is comes to setting or recovering centerline control, setting a point or recovering a point in a paved roadway would be my last option, even if the deed calls to the centerline and the road is built in an easement. Setting or recovering those points is obviously damaging and not a good idea as even a square chisel cut to recover a spike of PK will result in a pothole within a year or two in the states that have hard winters.
When is comes to setting corners in a paved roadway I will only do that if it is absolutely required. I find it much easier to set the points on an offset and document the offsets knowing that they will be more stable and easily recovered in the future.

Couldn't Texas just locate and purchase the old Alpine Sleigh ride from Astroworld and install that ? It's bound to be a lot easier on the budget and they're not going to know the difference.

John Hamilton, post: 427788, member: 640 wrote:
There was one jurisdiction in Westchester county, NY (City of Rye, I think it was) that actually made us "erase" painted targets. Also we were reprimanded in Wyoming for painting a target on a state highway.

John,
For the past couple of years I've been using Aervo's chalk paint for targeting hard surfaces. It sticks around for about a month.

True story:

When I worked for the State Highway Dept. we would from time to time get odd requests from other State Agencies that may or may not have been related to surveying. Some we attempted, some we declined. One we declined had to do with 'calibrating' a huge cast-iron sundial artistic structure at a State College. I declined that one after reading what all was entailed with operating a really 'accurate' sundial.

One we did accept was painting "unique" markers on the shoulder of certain highways for the Dept. of Public Safety (Highway Patrol). These were used by the OHP's fleet of Cessna 172s to accurately clock the speed of vehicles in concert with ground forces to ticket speeding vehicles.

One ten mile stretch inadvertently was marked at 5820' intervals instead of 5280'....nobody was ever the wiser. Which is REALLY funny because I noticed it by merely watching my odometer as I passed them not long after they were complete.

Yes, the crew was under my supervision. No I wasn't on site...The actual error was traced to an interagency memo written by my boss...the State's Chief of Surveys. That memo was framed on my wall for a while. An asphalt overlay project eventually turned the bad spacing into a page for the history books...;)