Last week, we were down on the Idaho line doing a cadastral retracement for a major structure replacement. Today I got a call from one of the local surveyors. but let's back up.
1903- South 1/2 of township is subdivided
1910- burned over in 1910 fire
1911- patentee A gives county rw of 30' on the n side of the SW4SW4 S28
1924- patentee B gives county rw of 20' on w side of SE4 S28
1924- patentee C gives county rw of 20' on the e side of the SW4 S28
1924- patentee D gives county rw of 20' on the s side of the NW4 of S33.
1951 Washington Water power preps for a reservior. supposedly locates the SW cor S28 sets MC and WCMC in the event corner is inundated.
1971 Local surveyor retraces section and breaks it down finds the stone for the SE cor 28 - says it doesn't appear quite right but accepts it for lack of better evidence. the position for N1/4 of 28 falls in the rdway. but he finds stumps of BTS says that scribing is visiable on one but illegible. other has blaze but no scribing. sets a rebar for the corner from BTs.
1974 other local surveyor can't find rebar - notes "BTS inconsistent" and rejects the stumps. He goes west 1/2 mile finds nothing- shoots cl of the county road at an eyeball from a fx line and single proportions in the corner and stakes out a few misc parcels-
1981-1984 yet another local surveyor can nort find the 71 rebar doesn't mention the 74 work observes the stumps accepts them and sets a rebar and cap. corner is in the center of the N/S county rd but 30 south of cl E/W county rd. establishes 2 new bts.
Also remonuments the stone at the SE corner of the section. w/ an AC.
1993- YALS comes in-to survey in the W1/2 S28. accepts work from 1981 and double proportions in the SW using the the found rebar and other misc monuments- his corner - 3.25" AC- falls 16' north of the cl of the existing ptw- see entry for 1911---
Interim- local surveyor (X) who was crew chief for surveyor in 1981 work conducts misc surveys in S28 and S33 using the rebar- and the 1993 section corner
phone company lays fiber optic- tears out one stump- that had the scribing.
2006 non-local surveyor (acme) comes in contacts local surveyor X about corner- X says Yes I was the crew chief and I saw scribing on the stump.
ACME tells X there are too many inconsistencies and he is going to Single proportion in the corner. he does- using the 3.25" ac set in 1993 and the Ac for the SE corner from 1981- thereby rejecting the corner but using a corner positioned from it to single pproportion in a new position.......:-/
2010 I show up- I find the 5/8bar set from the stumps i find the single prop rebar- they are 25' apart n/s but w/in 1' of each other for departure. I look at one stump it's been hi- stumped at about 3 feet up very rotted- there is some evidence of an initial cut at about 1 foot above there ground- ( all other stumps from the logging in the area are rotted also but only 1' up)- there is an apparent blaze and evidence of someone openning up the blaze w/ a chainsaw some time long ago. no scribing is visable- I search for the other BT stump- I find utility boxes. I talked to the land owner- she said there used to be a big black rotted stump there with one of the yellow signs but the phone people tore it out. subsequent measurements from the rebar show the telpeds are in the vic of the theoretical BT location.
I fire up my jack hammer-dig out the rebar from the stumps- cap is long gone- remonument it with a 3.25" AC buried 6" down in the road.
While I'm backfilling- a lady who -cometofindouthiredACME- stops and asks about our survey- I tell her we are retracing the section line for the bridge work she proceeds to tell me that the corner from the stumps is wrong because her surveyor said those weren't the original stumps because he couldn't see any marks on them and she had looked at them and she couldn't either. I tell her the evidence I found indicates they are. she leaves- thankfully w/o running over me...
I make several attempts to contact X- succeed the first part of this week. We talk- he fills me in on the events of 2006-and prior - I told him I was holding the position from the stump(s)- he says great and that he has a copy of the field notes showing he'd been there at the time the scribing was visable- no photos-:-(
He left a message today saying the lady who -cometofindouthiredACME is all fired up and wants a big mtg w/ everybody.- I'll be giving him a call back on Monday.
yer fault.... Shouldn't of scorned that lady.....
Shame on you, uh, Rankin
Pick one:
a) You should know by now that the landowners are the only parties with the authority to locate that section corner!
b) You are attempting to nullify their efforts to bend a senior line over a junior effort at relocation!
c) If the bearing trees are faulty, they must be corrected!
d) Know your state laws!
e) Any true professional could work that all out with a two sentence affidavit!
Shame on you, uh, Rankin
I think the key is Rankin has to track down every Surveyor that ever worked on this and mutually work out a solution with them, it's the professional thing to do.
I got chewed out one time because I found a minor problem with another Surveyor's work and he talked to me about it a couple of times but then started refusing to return my calls or e-mails. So I put the monument where I thought it belonged and filed the Survey. I was just trying to give him a chance to fix his mistake; in the larger scheme of things it didn't make too much difference because the point is in the middle of a gravel ranch road.
Jeez you'd think I was the lowest form of professional life according to a certain other verbose poster on RPLS. He wrote a book about all of the things I should have done.
Well excuuuuuuse ME!
Karoly!
> I think the key is Rankin has to track down every Surveyor that ever worked on this and mutually work out a solution with them, it's the professional thing to do.
No, that smacks of the worst sort of elitism! The landowners are the only parties with the authority to determine where that section corner is! The surveyors are merely bystanders at the train wreck!
If those other land surveyors attempted to nullify the landowners' rights to establish their section corner in its proper allodial title position, although most judges don't know this, Rankin's hands are tied unless he is acting in an agency relationship with like, uh, somebody. Wait, he does work for an agency! Well, know your state laws, anyway, okay?
Karoly!
OH I get it that's where I went wrong, I didn't get affidavits from everyone 🙁
Rookie mistake
> OH I get it that's where I went wrong, I didn't get affidavits from everyone
Yes, the proper method would of course have been to have set a monument for the corner and then to have gotten affidavits from everyone standing around to the effect that your monument was either:
a) where the original stone had been from 1878 to 1912 when a Model T Ford ran into it, thereby requiring the driver to pull it up and replace it with a Model T Ford axle that no one has ever found,
b) a corner that some landowner long ago had assured an ancestor was where he had been told was the corner when he was two years old, before his family moved away,
c) the corner that everyone had recognized for more than fifty years as being the true corners of their respective properties after the monument was set two years ago. or
d) where the government surveyors intended to set the corner rather than in the position of that old wore-out stone that used to be sticking up above the ground down the road, about 100 ft. away from where they intended to put it.
Karoly!
I am Alfie Davis. i come for a long line of Davisisisisisissesss
Shame on you, uh, Rankin
c) If the bearing trees are faulty, they must be corrected!
That's not a problem! 🙂
.jpg)
Shame on you, uh, Rankin
Its official! I'm a believer. Boundaries can and will move! whew, the job becomes so much easier now...think I'll just skip straight to single / double proportion from now on :good:
If the bearing trees are faulty
> c) If the bearing trees are faulty, they must be corrected!
>
>
> That's not a problem! 🙂
>
>
ROTFL!
If the bearing trees are faulty
Now, that is a classic solution to a common problem.
