I'm trying to keep this as generic as I can to keep from giving away details.
Back about 2 years ago we were contracted by a global engineering firm to do some topographic surveying of a goverment facility. As part of this survey, the government was interested in acquiring a tract of adjoining farmland. We surveyed this tract and gave the engineering firm a drawing and description. Well, today I was looking at some work nearby and got curious if the transction every went through. It did. And to my suprise, the government agency was so insecure that it sent its own survey crew from numerous miles and hours away to resurvey this tract and write its own legal description to be put in the deed. The tract is rectangular and approximately 20 acres. The government survey disagreed with what I had done by single digit seconds on the bearings and hundredths on the distances. Well, at least I'm not liable for my work on that job anymore.
>...The government survey disagreed with what I had done by single digit seconds on the bearings and hundredths on the distances. Well, at least I'm not liable for my work on that job anymore.
Maybe they just wanted someone with local knowledge to clear the path/way, and then they sent in their lackeys... It is a waste though, I agree.
Out of curiosity... Did you have to set any irons? I think you are from a non-capping state, so that was not where I was going... but if you did set irons, did they call them set or found? So your survey is not referenced in the notes or anywhere?
> .... We surveyed this tract and gave the engineering firm a drawing and description....
Chances are that the department that finalized the acquisition never saw your work, never knew you had done it. Communication between agencies is near zero and even between departments in an agency is merely incidental.
They called for our found irons.
That could be a possibility, but I wouldn't think so.
> They called for our found irons.
That's funny. "Found irons" on a new description/plat always make me look at it a little differently...
Private developer waste
I was a party in a very similar situation a few years ago, on the private developer side.
It was a case of right-hand and left-hand noncommunication. However, the other surveyor missed an extremely important problem with the limited rezoning of the property, so it turned out not to be a waste of the developer's money.
- Doug
I can't very well call something that I found something that I set.
I'm sure they did it just to personally insult Tommy Young.
It's probably because they knew you voted Republican......;-)
> I can't very well call something that I found something that I set.
>
> I'm sure they did it just to personally insult Tommy Young.
Dave, that's not what I was implying... It just makes wonder about the history of the parcel creation...
nevermind...
Carl
I apologize; I should have heeded my own advice to myself and stayed out of this thread. Tommy's opening line irritated me but that's not your fault.
Dave
> I apologize; I should have heeded my own advice to myself and stayed out of this thread. Tommy's opening line irritated me but that's not your fault.
No problem... no offense taken. I was going to type something verbose, but not asinine, just thinking we were on different pages in the same book.
It's all good.
🙂
It's the Government, I don't think anyone would expect different of them.
Seems like a waste on the face of it, but who knows.
There could be a good reason that the survey needed to be re-done/updated/whatever.
Maybe there's a time limit within which the agency is allowed to rely on the survey, and two years exceeded it, and they didn't want to pay Tommy's firm for an update. Perhaps that crew was sitting idle somewhere, and this was a fill-in project for them
Here in NYC, the Building Department and Sewer Department will not accept a survey older than 90 days or six moths, depending upon the usage. Things change too quickly around here.
Oh, and by the way, you are probably still liable........;-)
I regularly see threads on this forum that advise a potential buyer to get a survey to verify the conditions and location of property. That's what they did. They weren't trying to personally insult Tom, they don't know him. They verified that he did what he represented. As for the seconds and hundredths difference, I sometimes find the same thing on subsquent surveys I've done.
DJJ
The waste is understandable, given the regulations, it is the incompetence I can't deal with and complete lack of cooperation and coordination.
We contacted base utilities 5 working days prior to mobilizing on a topo, get there and the only utilities marked are irrigation, which we never locate anyway, as they are disconnected and removed (or not) by the irrigation crews. We do the topo, locating everything above ground, then match up with existing base maps. We prepare the digital file and do a print, then re-mobilize to do a walk through.
4 weeks after the call in, we get there and gas lines have been marked, fire up the RTK and locate them. Multiple conflicts marked on the ground as opposed to not only the base map, but the above ground valves and meters. We do another mark up and meet with the responsible parties. First they are amazed we have been back, as they were told we had already done the survey. Huh??? So why mark them on the ground! Well, they had a work order....
We go to communications and are told several vaults we physically located don't exist, clearly marked comm with identifying numbers. They call the one retired guy that apparantly is the only person who actually knows where everything is, and he confirms they are there. He says they were high security, so don't show them on our plat. Ah, design build job, gotta show them.
Electrical was pretty simple, all pedestals that coincide with base maps, except one manhole we never found. At 10:00 we are told someone will meet us on site and show it to us. We finished everything else by 2:00, and have an 8 hour drive ahead of us, so we call back to find out where electrical guy is and did he forget. No, he is working on another project and will be there eventually. There are over a hundred people in their department, including the four service trucks sitting in the yard when we got there initially, but as usual, there is only one guy that actully knows anything.
At 4:30 he shows up, and we wander around for 30 minutes, over an area we'd already spent an hour with the metal detector and probe going over, no manhole. He tells us to show it on the plat anyway, as he "knows it's around here somewhere"..... once again, design build, can't be ambiguious......
We drive home, and I'm supposed to be in Birmingham this morning, but am sitting at the computer typing out this epic rant.
Not only is is irritating, apparently it's contagious.
Try 3 months. The government survey was dated 3 months after mine.
Darn Tommy..
Y'know that the government was just using your survey as part of the study to perform their own.
They always have to do a 'study' before any project is performed.
😉
What are you working on in Birmingham?
Went up for orientation and to pick up site plans for a power plant job in North Carolina. I'm back with a former employer for a few months, as our contract has run out and will be probably March before anything else kicks loose for military bases.
