Joe the Surveyor, post: 413306, member: 118 wrote: Sometimes, I have no idea what PLSS guys are talking about.
It's all in the lingo
Southwest 1/4 of the north 3/5 of the left 7/16 of the lower 1/2 of the under 1/3 of the diagonal 3/4 of the back 40. Easy peasy
MightyMoe, post: 413294, member: 700 wrote: Yes, but when every point you set has a connection to government title, and they never, never, ever accept an interior corner "off" the math solution, then,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, my point being that Lucas didn't have experience surveying it those situations, and getting rid of the book is not about to happen here.
If you are referring to the BLM I vehemently disagree. There was a time when that may have been true, but it hasn't been the practice for 30+ years here. BLM is very respectful of private work here, and often accepts private survey monuments as marking the bona fide rights, even when in conflict with the "math" solution.
Lucas says " I could bring in example after example to prove my argument, but what is the point in that?"
The point in that is that more surveyors would understand his argument, particularly those that he is disparaging. And I expect that in many of his examples, there is a legitimate argument that counters his opinion.
MightyMoe, post: 413294, member: 700 wrote: ... they [BLM] never, never, ever accept an interior corner "off" the math solution
Thank God they don't have enough interest in my little piece of PLSSia to come out and play.
Steve
Jim in AZ, post: 413317, member: 249 wrote: If you are referring to the BLM I vehemently disagree. There was a time when that may have been true, but it hasn't been the practice for 30+ years here. BLM is very respectful of private work here, and often accepts private survey monuments as marking the bona fide rights, even when in conflict with the "math" solution.
Yes the BLM, I'm in resurvey central here, and I've never encountered a BLM survey that considered an interior corner. All the thousands of sections resurveyed here have been split into lots by perfect math, there isn't one that I've seen that deviates from that. These sections have been retraced recently (80's to the present).
Now as for corners along Section lines they do accept local surveyors all the time, if there is a 1/16 along a section line, they only seem to accept them if it "fits" closely. It's the interior where that never happens.
I do have an interesting one coming up, this is a center of a Section in a very distorted section, using straight lines between quarter corners creates a very distorted section breakdown, I knew the BLM had the S2NE4 coal estate and they are doing a retracement, so I talked to them to see if they would accept a more equitable breakdown of the section, they decided they wanted to do the quarter corner to quarter corner math solution. Since there is a monument set there from the 70's (it was set, but at the time and until this year all the section was split north-south along the east-west centerline so the monument never controlled a 1/16 line) I accepted the existing monument and proceeded to breakdown the N2. If they plat that section with the perfect math then I will know they still aren't going to use existing monuments because the existing center while pretty close isn't perfect and acreages will be different.
MightyMoe, post: 413419, member: 700 wrote: Yes the BLM, I'm in resurvey central here, and I've never encountered a BLM survey that considered an interior corner. All the thousands of sections resurveyed here have been split into lots by perfect math, there isn't one that I've seen that deviates from that. These sections have been retraced recently (80's to the present).
Now as for corners along Section lines they do accept local surveyors all the time, if there is a 1/16 along a section line, they only seem to accept them if it "fits" closely. It's the interior where that never happens.
I do have an interesting one coming up, this is a center of a Section in a very distorted section, using straight lines between quarter corners creates a very distorted section breakdown, I knew the BLM had the S2NE4 coal estate and they are doing a retracement, so I talked to them to see if they would accept a more equitable breakdown of the section, they decided they wanted to do the quarter corner to quarter corner math solution. Since there is a monument set there from the 70's (it was set, but at the time and until this year all the section was split north-south along the east-west centerline so the monument never controlled a 1/16 line) I accepted the existing monument and proceeded to breakdown the N2. If they plat that section with the perfect math then I will know they still aren't going to use existing monuments because the existing center while pretty close isn't perfect and acreages will be different.
That sounds like the "old guard." They need to study the '09 manual, which specifically addresses the importance of local corners. If they are negatively affecting existing private property rights they need to be taken to task for doing so.
Jim in AZ, post: 413420, member: 249 wrote: That sounds like the "old guard." They need to study the '09 manual, which specifically addresses the importance of local corners. If they are negatively affecting existing private property rights they need to be taken to task for doing so.
I agree with you, although I wouldn't put it on the surveyors, they have limited say.
Early in my career I thought the BLM was just one big happy family. After moving west I have experienced the differences in the offices. They aren't much different than larger firms with offices in several States. Sometimes the only sign of a connection is the sign on the building.
The point is, blanket statements of 'the BLM does this or that' don't travel well. Thankfully I work in areas where they are helpful, professional and knowledgeable.
Larry Best, post: 413404, member: 763 wrote: Lucas says " I could bring in example after example to prove my argument, but what is the point in that?"
The point in that is that more surveyors would understand his argument, particularly those that he is disparaging. And I expect that in many of his examples, there is a legitimate argument that counters his opinion.
Imagine Surveying this way. "I would have put the evidence in my plat, but what's the point"...
James Fleming, post: 413312, member: 136 wrote: It's all in the lingo
Southwest 1/4 of the north 3/5 of the left 7/16 of the lower 1/2 of the under 1/3 of the diagonal 3/4 of the back 40. Easy peasy
LOL...not just the lingo...Its statements like[SARCASM] "the original BLM surveyor set a piece of wood in the desert, now another survey found this piece of charcoal, sniffed it, and the rejected it and set a two-inch pipe 8.04' northeast to form a new quarter panel of the left front end of a Chevy using a axle from a Ford. I found the axle, promptly rejected it, then using a sun shot combined with a fence corner from the dude ranch, found the old piece of charcoal, sniffed, and the reset it with a four foot concrete monument with my seal. After which we drank beer and ate rattlesnake."[/SARCASM]
thebionicman, post: 413425, member: 8136 wrote: Imagine Surveying this way. "I would have put the evidence in my plat, but what's the point"...
Right. Just a few more lines to convince them, like: "I'm probably one of the smartest surveyors around. You wouldn't believe how much evidence I've seen. I've probably found more evidences than anybody you know".
Tom Adams, post: 413434, member: 7285 wrote: Right. Just a few more lines to convince them, like: "I'm probably one of the smartest surveyors around. You wouldn't believe how much evidence I've seen. I've probably found more evidences than anybody you know".
Failing Surveyor @TomAdams Terrible! SEE YOU IN COURT!
MightyMoe, post: 413422, member: 700 wrote: I agree with you, although I wouldn't put it on the surveyors, they have limited say.
I have one where they pincushioned themselves!
Joe the Surveyor, post: 413432, member: 118 wrote: [SARCASM]"the original BLM surveyor set a piece of wood in the desert, now another survey found this piece of charcoal, sniffed it, and the rejected it and set a two-inch pipe 8.04' northeast to form a new quarter panel of the left front end of a Chevy using a axle from a Ford. I found the axle, promptly rejected it, then using a sun shot combined with a fence corner from the dude ranch, found the old piece of charcoal, sniffed, and the reset it with a four foot concrete monument with my seal. After which we drank beer and ate rattlesnake."[/SARCASM]
You pretty much pegged it, except add: "Lather, rinse, and repeat as needed."
I so very rarely reject an un-called for monument that I cannot recall a specific instance today. My peers have called me lazy for doing not doing so. There are surveyors out there that want their seal on every corner record. They will find ANY other piece of field evidence or math to justify driving their irons. Often within a half a foot of yours, or the one you accepted because everyone else has for the last 100 years.
Personally, I prefer to honor occupation, even without monumentation or recorded surveys, more than math. Thus, I have been a little jealous of the colonial surveyors, because I have always I thought surveying in these areas was about the evidence on the ground. The guys actually working in the original 13 thinking may not agree with my idealism.
At the end of the day I do not plan to become a professional martyr. So, I will survey in the way that I can most easily defend in court or if reviewed by the board in accordance with the laws and court decisions in my state. In situations where the math seems easier to defend I will put it on the ground.
Lucas is fun to listen too and probably correct in the jurisdictions in which he practices, but not everywhere-all the time.
Steve
Dave Karoly, post: 413445, member: 94 wrote: I have one where they pincushioned themselves!
Stuff happens;)
They do a lot of good work, but every now and then...........
A lot of the more arrogant surveyors often say things like most other surveyors are incompetent, or idiots. (I admit that a lot of those guys are pretty darn good). But I think that attitude might keep you from learning anything new. Often times you find someone's corner in the field and you are convinced their monument is wrong. But you might find something you missed if you talk to them rather than saying that "he must be part of the 50%" and move on. (just something to think about)
@ Tom Adams et al
It is like I tell the guys weekly, You have my trust just so far. Take pictures of everything you find with the compass app on your phone or with the GPS cameras in the gobag I provided cause all you tell me is a mere tale until you have proof in living color with coords and direction of view. Digital pictures are cheap and worth every effort in taking.
I edited this after seeing quotes about compass directions.
From my experience in following several eras of surveyors that only had and used compass in this area.
First and foremost I keep in mind that most compass operators started out with as good as possible settings and as they went along and around the property it is necessary to understand that many things can and do bring error to compass readings.
Most actual compass read boundary descriptions do not close and the distances usually are closer than the directions.
Joe the Surveyor, post: 413432, member: 118 wrote: [SARCASM] "the original BLM surveyor set a piece of wood in the desert, now another survey found this piece of charcoal, sniffed it, and the rejected it and set a two-inch pipe 8.04' northeast to form a new quarter panel of the left front end of a Chevy using a axle from a Ford. I found the axle, promptly rejected it, then using a sun shot combined with a fence corner from the dude ranch, found the old piece of charcoal, sniffed, and the reset it with a four foot concrete monument with my seal. After which we drank beer and ate rattlesnake."[/SARCASM]
[SARCASM]Makes perfect sense to me. I think I was a chainman on that crew.[/SARCASM]
Tom Adams, post: 413459, member: 7285 wrote: A lot of the more arrogant surveyors often say things like most other surveyors are incompetent, or idiots. (I admit that a lot of those guys are pretty darn good). But I think that attitude might keep you from learning anything new. Often times you find someone's corner in the field and you are convinced their monument is wrong. But you might find something you missed if you talk to them rather than saying that "he must be part of the 50%" and move on. (just something to think about)
One of the first LSs I worked for told me "You can learn something from anyone on the crew, even from _______." Jack, the LS, probably saw the seed of arrogance in me and decided it was an appropriate time to gently set me straight. He had recently begun sending me out as chief about half the time, but was still working directly with us about half the time. His statement may have been prompted by Jack's observing me having ignored some suggestions by ________, and then by my having mumbled something under my breath about ______ being an idiot right after he had done something particularly ridiculous.
As long as one has had that lesson and remembered it, I think that they can recognize incompetence, whether as an isolated occurrence or as an alarmingly widespread phenomenon, and still be able to learn something useful from a surveyor who has demonstrated incompetence. Within the practice of surveying, we each have areas of competence and areas of incompetence. A surveyor who has incompetently retraced existing boundaries may be one of the best around for creating high precision control, high rise construction, or for using the latest technology to create highly accurate maps or renderings of existing conditions. I can recognize the incompetence on the boundary survey, but still learn some very useful things in the areas of practice about which the other surveyor knows more than I.
Jack's point actually went beyond that, meaning that someone who is a complete goofball and appears utterly incompetent may, upon occasion, surprise everyone and offer a useful suggestion because he is looking at a situation from a different perspective.
Unfortunately, boundary surveying is an area that the colleges and many surveyors acting as mentors to others have given the impression as an easy, not terribly complicated area of practice such that, by definition, any licensed surveyor is automatically competent at. With civil engineers having been largely successful through the last century as defining surveying as a subset of civil engineering, that attitude is understandable. Engineers don't concern themselves much with the law other than perhaps the building & zoning codes of the jurisdictions they work in. Even many of those include lots of tables and numbers to ensure that engineers can comprehend and apply them.
Engineers focus on the numbers - the measurements and the math. The rules they most often follow are typically design criteria published in manuals. On the occasions when design elements can't simply be plucked from a manual, they engage their math skills. Compared to some of the math required for design, that required for reducing boundary measurements to mathematical figures is fairly simple. The most often used text books to teach boundary surveying has neatly expressed every topic into a one or two sentence Principle, which by an engineering mindset, translates to Rule.
The rigid application of principles one thinks they understand is equally incompetent to adhering to no particular rule. The surveyor who always sticks to the math solution that is based on only deed dimensions calculated from only those monuments stated in a deed while never considering any other monuments or indications of use & occupation is equally incompetent to the surveyor who always accepts the occupation regardless of whether it represents a reasonable interpretation of the description in the deed.
When I worked with the BLM in AK, everyone in camp was pretty young and few had any experience outside of the BLM. There was an arrogance that the only competent and diligent surveyors were BLM surveyors. Not all held that view, but it was the predominant one among those I worked with. Much of it stemmed from the facts that the BLM hired, almost exclusively, graduates of accredited 4-yr degrees, provided additional training in cadastral methods such that by the time one was put in a position of any responsibility, they were thoroughly familiar with the Manual, cover to cover, and had also had training in field methods, research, etc. This was all training that most private surveyors never get. But most important was the perception that as government surveyors, they were not constrained by a profit motive and so would do whatever was necessary to gather pertinent evidence and get the work done, while the private surveyor couldn't possibly be working to the same ethical code because they were in business to make money, so would invariably cut corners when they could to get the job done quicker & cheaper. Private corners would only be accepted if there was a clear and complete pedigree to a govt monument and "correct" methods of re-establishment had clearly been used.
Many of those folks have since moved on to private practice, some to other agencies, and a few have remained in the BLM. Of those I know who have remained, they are now some of the most respected BLM surveyors among those both in the BLM, and those in the private sector who have had occasion to deal with them. Whether they never really held the superior attitude, have learned a few things along the way, or a combination of both, I don't know.
In CA, by looking at the plats and notes produced by the BLM, you can notice that the arrogant attitude seemed pretty pervasive until the mid or late 80s. In one township about 40 or 50 miles east of Sacramento, they BLM deputy rejected nearly every private monument they encountered. One had been in place for well over 20 years, but was a little under 2 links from the BLM calculated position. The variance from the position must have been considered prima facie evidence of incorrect methods and/or carelessness. But in the next township over, resurveyed by the BLM only 2 or 3 years later, they accepted most private monuments, rejecting only those that didn't fit with other surveys and could be shown to have been set with improper shortcut methods. Most of the BLM resurveys I've seen dating after 1987 or 1988 have been performed more like that 2nd example than the first.
Having worked for large companies and for govt agencies with more than one office, I can attest to the differing attitudes and working atmospheres that tend to develop in such organizations. I doubt that the BLM is immune to that. With my career being roughly half private sector and half public sector, I can offer that I have observed the range of diligence and perhaps ethics seems to be broader in the public sector than in the private sector. Meaning that both the most diligent, most knowledgeable, most ethical surveyors I've known have been mostly from public sector. However, the laziest, most ignorant, and the most morally and ethically bankrupt surveyors I've known have also been public sector.
"You can learn something from anyone...", Jack Erickson, 1983
eapls2708, post: 413531, member: 589 wrote: But most important was the perception that as government surveyors, they were not constrained by a profit motive and so would do whatever was necessary to gather pertinent evidence and get the work done, while the private surveyor couldn't possibly be working to the same ethical code because they were in business to make money, so would invariably cut corners when they could to get the job done quicker & cheaper.
Am I missing something or does this insinuate all private practice Land Surveyor practitioners are incompetent and unethical?
