A bit of of background. Some of you know what I do and some don't. I do shallow drilling and other methods for geological testing. I am doing a project for a client that wants me to do testing on sites where they are going to drill oil wells. They have been giving me coordinates(NAD83) of the well stakes. I go there , set up my grid for testing centered on the well stake and do my thing. It works well as I have the coordinates for the well stake, and it is in the ground to tie my project to. If my test grid is centered within 5 feet of the well stake they are happy. I use RTK because I need to know precise locations and elevations of where my test points are, but the whole test grid can be shifted around up to 5' or so maybe even 10' from being centered on the well stake without it being a problem.
My client uses a licensed surveyor to stake out these wells. The problem we are running into is the surveyor or their whole workflow is behind and essentially once the surveyor puts the stake in the ground and provides the NAD83 coordinates there is not enough time for me to do my testing before the company starts doing the construction of the pad site, etc. I need to do my thing before the area is disturbed.
My client has footage calls for the well locations now. Basically X feet from this section line, y feet from this section line, etc. I obviously am not a surveyor and have never worked with anything like this before. My surveying experience is just with working with state plane coordinates of where I do my testing. My client wants to know if I can take this information and figure out approximately where the well stake will be so that I can do my testing before the surveyor actually gets there and puts the stake in the ground.
That's a really bad idea on several counts. In regards to just two: first; finding the likely location of a section line is rarely an easy task for a lay person, and second; I do not know of a state in which such a task is allowed to be performed by anyone OTHER than a licensed Land Surveyor.
> That's a really bad idea on several counts. In regards to just two: first; finding the likely location of a section line is rarely an easy task for a lay person, and second; I do not know of a state in which such a task is allowed to be performed by anyone OTHER than a licensed Land Surveyor.
Thanks.
I would not be reporting any location of the proposed well stake. They just want me to base my test site on where approximately we think it will be.
I have been doing this type of testing for over 15 years and I don't need a license. In fact the positional data I collect is mostly used just by me for processing the results of my test.
All I am trying to figure out is where to center my test on projects they want me to do in the situations where the surveyor has not been there yet.
It sounds like I may have difficulties though based on what you are saying on finding the section lines.:-S
OMG!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unless things where you are way different from what I'm used too:-O
> OMG!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Unless things where you are way different from what I'm used too:-O
Any advice for me then on how to approach this? Just to add as a disclaimer I spend about 1 day doing testing at each site. If I goof up the location it really impacts nobody but me and I lose a days work.
They will know the error once the surveyor stakes the well and they compare the actual coordinates to what I came up with. Worst case is I have to go back and redo my work in the right spot. We are not placing any type of structures or anything permanent at the sites.
Drilldo, I feel your pain. Scheduling multi tasks between multi firms is a challenge to just about anybody. That's why projects have superintendents.
I've staked wells, test holes, delineated wet lands, etc for years. Likely not to the demands of the oil business, but none the less the scheduling and communication problems exist and are alive and well. They will never go away.
My simple solution (as the surveyor staking the locations) was to meet the drill guy on site, slightly after I was finishing up. If the location isn't acceptable to the drill guy, then move it. Then the surveyor can note the revised location, as needed. In the long run I think it saves everybody money.
Usually not meeting the drilling rig operation, but at least somebody in charge who knows what the heck is going on. Usually the foreman or some such authority.
Good luck
Wow, I just can't see how, I've seen section lines on GIS be so far off you would be almost out of the 40 you want to put the well stake in, and I've seldom seen them be within your 5-10' tolerance except in Campbell County and that's only cause of all the new resurveys.
And only where the resurveys are really new.
Also, there are reasons to shift the well stakes around after the surveyor sets them and all the company people come in, the wildlife studies, the property owner, too close to a stock tank, a water well, could be many things that move the location of a well stake including topo issues.
I suppose if you lay out a large enough grid do your testing then placed the well stake inside your grid that might work.
One thing I have to ask, when I stake a well it's usually weeks to months before the site gets built for drilling, why are you in such a crunch with these?
We will get a sketch from the client with an ideal location of the proposed well based on an idea of what the survey looks like/how many acres (usually assumed to be 640 acres, one mile square). When we get into the field, we will tie evidence of the survey and then look for any impediments near the desired location of the well. Offsets must be maintained from electric lines, buried pipelines, etc. The field evidence goes to the office where a boundary determination is made and the coordinates of the proposed well are calculated.
If the boundary determination of the survey has already been made and you have the coordinates of the survey corners, then it seems possible that you could calculate the offsets from the survey lines to figure out the well location within a reasonable margin of error. But usually by the time you have the boundary coordinates, you'll have the well coordinates too.
The areas that I am working can be quite tricky requiring resurveying large areas (last two wells I set required a resurvey an area of about 122,880 acres to verify proper location) to get in the footsteps of the original surveyors. There are many sections with no corners and many sections with multiple corners. There is one block in particular where there are two different prevailing reconstructions which put the section lines about a quarter of a mile apart. It is way too easy to find yourself in the wrong place if you don't know what you are doing.
You should be able to use any sport grade GPS or better unit like PM3, MobileMapper or other and get close to NAD83, drive a stake and "do your thing".
If you are working in a different datum like State Plane Coords, then you or the provider can give you the info you are able to work with.
When the surveyor comes along, he can locate your stake, use it or relate to it and stake the well.
Most of the wells that I've staked usually are not drilled exactly on my stake. I usually go back and locate the actual drill location for the final drawing. Sometimes as much as 200ft difference. Usually within 50ft.
> One thing I have to ask, when I stake a well it's usually weeks to months before the site gets built for drilling, why are you in such a crunch with these?
I have no idea. That is beyond my control. The client just told me that usually once the stake is in the ground construction of the site begins very shortly there after and there is not time for us to do our thing before this happens. We have ran into it several times where we get to a site thinking no one well be there only to find dozers working building the pad.
> You should be able to use any sport grade GPS or better unit like PM3, MobileMapper or other and get close to NAD83, drive a stake and "do your thing".
>
> If you are working in a different datum like State Plane Coords, then you or the provider can give you the info you are able to work with.
>
> When the surveyor comes along, he can locate your stake, use it or relate to it and stake the well.
>
> Most of the wells that I've staked usually are not drilled exactly on my stake. I usually go back and locate the actual drill location for the final drawing. Sometimes as much as 200ft difference. Usually within 50ft.
I have survey grade equipment.
My problem is I do not know the coordinates of the wells in any form of X,Y or lat/lon.
Evidently all my client can provide me with are the calls until the surveyors have been there and then they have coordinates.
They want me to do my work before the surveyor gets there. We have no coordinates.
As to the the positioning of the well relative to the stake I have seen what you describe in my years in the business but this company seems to be dead on. I have been to about a dozen sites many of which already have the cellar built and conductor pipe in place and they have all been pretty much dead nuts on to the coordinates I was provided.
> We will get a sketch from the client with an ideal location of the proposed well based on an idea of what the survey looks like/how many acres (usually assumed to be 640 acres, one mile square). When we get into the field, we will tie evidence of the survey and then look for any impediments near the desired location of the well. Offsets must be maintained from electric lines, buried pipelines, etc. The field evidence goes to the office where a boundary determination is made and the coordinates of the proposed well are calculated.
>
> If the boundary determination of the survey has already been made and you have the coordinates of the survey corners, then it seems possible that you could calculate the offsets from the survey lines to figure out the well location within a reasonable margin of error. But usually by the time you have the boundary coordinates, you'll have the well coordinates too.
>
> The areas that I am working can be quite tricky requiring resurveying large areas (last two wells I set required a resurvey an area of about 122,880 acres to verify proper location) to get in the footsteps of the original surveyors. There are many sections with no corners and many sections with multiple corners. There is one block in particular where there are two different prevailing reconstructions which put the section lines about a quarter of a mile apart. It is way too easy to find yourself in the wrong place if you don't know what you are doing.
Yikes.
Definitely sounds like what they are wanting to do is not really feasible with my skill set. I have contacted the people that are doing all the surveying for them and maybe they can help. These wells are all in then the same general area so they likely have most of the boundary done.
"working in a different datum like State Plane Coords,"
Surely you are not serious?
"working in a different datum like State Plane Coords,"
> Surely you are not serious?
Go with Prof Cliff on this one. Crazy notions on this.
Mistake 1 is to set your own location based on some type of boundary parameters. Coordinates, Lat/Long do NOT define boundary parameters.
Mistake 2 is to actually do the work. I would consider that "at risk" to you and your company. AKA - you are on the hook for liability of improper locations.
Mistake 3 is not "telling" the client that you "NEED" to wait until it is staked by the surveyor. Don't just respond because they say "now", tell them to wait. Ask any lawyer.
$0.02
"working in a different datum like State Plane Coords,"
> > Surely you are not serious?
>
> Go with Prof Cliff on this one. Crazy notions on this.
>
> Mistake 1 is to set your own location based on some type of boundary parameters. Coordinates, Lat/Long do NOT define boundary parameters.
>
> Mistake 2 is to actually do the work. I would consider that "at risk" to you and your company. AKA - you are on the hook for liability of improper locations.
>
> Mistake 3 is not "telling" the client that you "NEED" to wait until it is staked by the surveyor. Don't just respond because they say "now", tell them to wait. Ask any lawyer.
>
> $0.02
mistake 1? You are probably right. I really know nothing about this type of stuff. That is why I was asking. We have a problem and I did not know how to solve it so I thought I would ask.
mistake 2? No risk really other than my lost time. There would be disclaimers as to how I arrived at any locations and if they were wrong I just would have to redo it. The company understands this is not the ideal way to do it and in all reality I would get them to sign off on the proposed locations of my test sites before we did the work so if it was wrong they would have agreed to it as well and likely would pay for me to redo.
mistake 3? Waiting is not an option. We have to do our work before the site is disturbed or it does not work properly. An ideal world and what actually happens most the time is two different things.
"working in a different datum like State Plane Coords,"
Your client is jecking you around. What you are trying to do is "off the wall". As others have said, I can see tons of liability here.
"working in a different datum like State Plane Coords,"
> Your client is jecking you around. What you are trying to do is "off the wall". As others have said, I can see tons of liability here.
There really is not liability. My agreement with them really does not specify the well location, it specifies the location of the test locations.
It does not look like doing this is possible based on other replies but if I were to do it it would go like this:
"Based off the calls you provided us we think the well location is here. We are not surveyors and this is just an approximation based off the information you provided us. We assume no liability if this is inaccurate. We are going to perform our tests with test locations at the following location (with a map and text file of the coordinates of our test locations.)"
All we are are guaranteeing them is we are doing the tests at the locations we say we will do them at which we are quite confident and capable of doing.
Your best bet is to work thru the site coordinator.
Most drilling operation has a structured group of seasoned personnel that plan everything and have one man that talks to everyone and sets the schedule.
Your activities should be planned in the process if it is something that matters to them.
They usually expect you to be able to do your job without knowing or caring about what you need to do it.
As a surveyor, they give me some parameters to where they want the well and from USGS topo maps I can scale and arrive with close enough location to take my handheld Garmin to take them to the site within a few hours to see if it is doable.
Many times their desired site is in a flood zone and one of the last they sent me was in a farmers stock pond. Not every location in Northeast Texas is a place to get a drilling rig to or even attempt to fix site on.
They will look around and point and say put it there and there I drive a stake and do my survey to show where it lands on the property.
When they know what they are gonna yield before they drill, they will start worrying about their spacing of wells and that is when location get critical.
With today's drilling rigs, they can setup anywhere and guide the bit to anywhere else by the time they reach their desired depth.
"My client has footage calls for the well locations now. Basically X feet from this section line, y feet from this section line, etc. I obviously am not a surveyor and have never worked with anything like this before.
Drilldo, I never mind being the devil's advocate, but in this case I have to agree with the above posters.
If a surveyor computed these footage calls based on a boundary survey, he would have also been available to already provide you with on-site NAD83 control. It therefore seems unlikely that the footage calls were accurately computed, so even if you could find all the boundary line calls, I really doubt the footage calls are accurate. So garbage in, garbage out.
Second, boundary surveying is a separate (but related) art from positioning and measurement. It has a large learning curve not only in the fundamentals, but in each particular geographic location.
I suggest pressing your client to find a second land surveyor, as the first one is overloaded. This is the only solution.
"working in a different datum like State Plane Coords,"
> mistake 1? You are probably right. I really know nothing about this type of stuff. That is why I was asking. We have a problem and I did not know how to solve it so I thought I would ask.
>
> mistake 2? No risk really other than my lost time. There would be disclaimers as to how I arrived at any locations and if they were wrong I just would have to redo it. The company understands this is not the ideal way to do it and in all reality I would get them to sign off on the proposed locations of my test sites before we did the work so if it was wrong they would have agreed to it as well and likely would pay for me to redo.
>
> mistake 3? Waiting is not an option. We have to do our work before the site is disturbed or it does not work properly. An ideal world and what actually happens most the time is two different things.
Drilldo, some of us here are trying to help. Really. Let me reiterate:
1) There is nothing about "probably" involved. What is the issue is that by asking and getting good answers, you then think you know. Questions and answers are very justifiable, and good for everybody. But you are dead wrong.
2) Call your lawyer. If you think somebody signing off on anything is invincible - you are kidding yourself. Your firm is on the hook, especially if an abutting property owner with deeper pockets gets PO'ed.
3) Waiting is not only an option, it is best served as the only option. You are first man in according to what you say, correct? Why not be the second man in, after they stake it for you? See #2
