The reason we have a PLSS, since 1785, and a BLM Manual, is to establish property lines for PRIVATE SECTOR LANDOWNERS! The US gave or sold this land and it had to be surveyed so that those lands could be accepted and settled.
When patents are laid out on the ground in good faith, and those lines can be identified years and decades later, my job is to retrace THOSE property lines for the private sector, who have "senior rights?" as contemplated by the Founding Fathers, even though those lines often abut Federal lands.
Or, am I completely mistaken? I am now told by surveyors, quite younger than I, that when laying out "Federal Interest Lands" with GPS, long-existing private surveyor lines set with transit and chain constitute "gross errors" and therefore can not be accepted by the Government. Because of this reasoning, I now have pincushions all over my county, over the matter of a few feet here and there.
Please advise.
In my opinion, gross error should be defined relative to the accepted methods in use at the time monuments were set.
(My opinion and $1 will no longer get you coffee.)
to clarify, I am talking about one large company, the only company I know that pincushions every 1/16 corner that does not meet their own GPS-perfect complete section breakdown - I am not talking about the government doing this, but private subcontractors to the US.
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 433100, member: 12536 wrote: to clarify, I am talking about one large company, the only company I know that pincushions every 1/16 corner that does not meet their own GPS-perfect complete section breakdown - I am not talking about the government doing this, but private subcontractors to the US.
I've always been of the opinion that "what happens in the field STAYS in the field". Sometimes it's necessary to keep things 'clean' out here in the real world. One has to "sweep the floor" from time to time to keep junk from piling up in your favorite woods and stomping grounds...
I believe maintenance is part of our stewardship. Take that however you want, I won't apologize for my opinions. 😉
I am sorry to hear this type thing. Clearly the role of re tracing surveyor is not understood at all by the practitioners you describe. The duty of the retracing surveyor is to offer an opinion on the location of a boundary, where it has already been established, that is well reasoned and based upon a preponderance of the best available evidence. Measurement evidence merely corroborates other evidence that forms the basis of the opinion.
I would guess that once the original survey was complete, and the field notes filed and accepted by the blm or glo, the government quitclaimed title and claim up to just that. The original surveys didn't even set 1/16th corners .. did they ??
Gross errors after the original survey should not be honored, but as Bill pointed out, a gross error by a licensed survey using modern GPS is a very differnent thing than the gross error of a entry man in 1890. A modern surveyor rejecting an 1890 location made by a landowner without gross error is a gross error in and of itself.
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 433089, member: 12536 wrote: The reason we have a PLSS, since 1785, and a BLM Manual, is to establish property lines for PRIVATE SECTOR LANDOWNERS! The US gave or sold this land and it had to be surveyed so that those lands could be accepted and settled.
When patents are laid out on the ground in good faith, and those lines can be identified years and decades later, my job is to retrace THOSE property lines for the private sector, who have "senior rights?" as contemplated by the Founding Fathers, even though those lines often abut Federal lands.
Or, am I completely mistaken? I am now told by surveyors, quite younger than I, that when laying out "Federal Interest Lands" with GPS, long-existing private surveyor lines set with transit and chain constitute "gross errors" and therefore can not be accepted by the Government. Because of this reasoning, I now have pincushions all over my county, over the matter of a few feet here and there.
Please advise.
I've never worked in CO, but in OK the main culprit for pin cushions seems to be the corner record system. The vast majority of them contain absolutely no information on how the mag nail that was set was established, they also seem to ignore the records of any BLM or GLO resurveys.
The last OK survey I worked on was the breakdown of one section. All 8 corners had corner records that described new mag nails or rebar that were set with no explanation as to how. At 7 of the corners we found the original monuments, 1 to 60 feet from the corner record position. The 8th, of course did not fit well with the originals, the other corner records, any improvement, or occupation. There is a "pin cushion" at each of those corners now.
The purpose of the PLSS was to quickly dispose of the public domain. It was expected that patentees would locate themselves in good faith by connecting to the original survey.
The patent is for the SE 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of Section 12 but there's a beautiful valley with a reliable flowing spring in the SE 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of Section 13 so he occupies that instead. Or he deliberately fudges the boundary to take in a spring in the SW 1/4 of the SE 1/4 or he fails to connect to the original survey at all or ignores information on the size and shape of his patent. All of those are bad faith.
But the patentee who starts at the SE corner of Section 13 and runs a square oriented to the true meridian out on the ground about 20 chains on a side is acting in good faith despite his errors because errors are expected.
One of the beautiful things about the fabric of the PLSS is that the original corners were absolute. One of the ugliest things about the PLSS is that the original corners were absolute.
Boundary retracements that include not only long-obliterated monuments but also poorly kept and pencil-whipped notes is an art with one foot in geometry and the other foot in clairvoyancy.
Dennis Moulin once quipped a most astute observation concerning cook-booking lost corner locations with a calculator and the Manual: "The one place I can assure where the corner WAS NOT is the derived location."
to me, and I thought to the BLM, a "gross error" would not qualify as a good faith survey. Shooting at the wrong target altogether is a gross error, not failure to comply with some future surveyor's definition of acceptable precision.
In my examples (all true) all previous private surveyors laying out patents and subsequent GPS contractors for the US were bisecting the same section as defined and monumented by the BLM/GLO in the late 1800's/early 1900's.
The gist of my question is, the Founding Fathers developed the PLSS, whereby the US laid out the section lines, but it was fundamentally understood that privateers would locate the interior patents as they disposed to the public. local surveyors staking out imperfectly precise patents of 160 acres or 40 acres was expected and adopted by law. It is WHERE those private surveyors placed the monuments that defined the private sector boundaries.
At no time did the laws enacted say: The patents are good for 50 years, or, whenever some new government surveyor comes along with instruments we can not even fathom (GPS), and, SINCE IT IS FEDERAL INTEREST LANDS, take that "erroneous" ground back once held privately in good faith, because FEDERAL INTEREST LANDS HAVE ULTIMATE SENIOR RIGHTS.
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 433089, member: 12536 wrote: The reason we have a PLSS, since 1785, and a BLM Manual, is to establish property lines for PRIVATE SECTOR LANDOWNERS! The US gave or sold this land and it had to be surveyed so that those lands could be accepted and settled.
When patents are laid out on the ground in good faith, and those lines can be identified years and decades later, my job is to retrace THOSE property lines for the private sector, who have "senior rights?" as contemplated by the Founding Fathers, even though those lines often abut Federal lands.
Or, am I completely mistaken? I am now told by surveyors, quite younger than I, that when laying out "Federal Interest Lands" with GPS, long-existing private surveyor lines set with transit and chain constitute "gross errors" and therefore can not be accepted by the Government. Because of this reasoning, I now have pincushions all over my county, over the matter of a few feet here and there.
Please advise.
Tell your young'uns to go back to the book, your job is to do exactly what you have expressed with Sr. and Jr. rights involved. Kids these days get hung up on "gross errors" and pay way too much attention to the improvement in precision measurement over the original intent of any division or subdivision.
I would love to see one of them blasted out of a court room when they assert that the original intent is defeated by long standing occupation as a result of their measurements.
Next time you enter into that conversation with them, ask them if they understand intent, proportional measure, Jr. and Sr. rights and simultaneous conveyances.
It's both amusing the reliance on modern equipment an detrimental to the profession at the same time. Allot of these younger ones are dead in the water these days and can't even pull out a piece of paper and calc an angle from bearings without a calculated, let alone wrap multiple sets of angles, add them up and compute the closure by hand.
I started out on a K & E optical transit that had no optical plummet and had to interpolate angles read from the vernier. Take the batteries away, give them a steel tape and spring gauge, ask them to adjust for temperature correction and compute closure without a calculator and watch them look at you like a deer in the headlights.
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 433135, member: 12536 wrote: to me, and I thought to the BLM, a "gross error" would not qualify as a good faith survey. Shooting at the wrong target altogether is a gross error, not failure to comply with some future surveyor's definition of acceptable precision.
In my examples (all true) all previous private surveyors laying out patents and subsequent GPS contractors for the US were bisecting the same section as defined and monumented by the BLM/GLO in the late 1800's/early 1900's.
The gist of my question is, the Founding Fathers developed the PLSS, whereby the US laid out the section lines, but it was fundamentally understood that privateers would locate the interior patents as they disposed to the public. local surveyors staking out imperfectly precise patents of 160 acres or 40 acres was expected and adopted by law. It is WHERE those private surveyors placed the monuments that defined the private sector boundaries.
At no time did the laws enacted say: The patents are good for 50 years, or, whenever some new government surveyor comes along with instruments we can not even fathom (GPS), and, SINCE IT IS FEDERAL INTEREST LANDS, take that "erroneous" ground back once held privately in good faith, because FEDERAL INTEREST LANDS HAVE ULTIMATE SENIOR RIGHTS.
INTENT is the controlling factor and any type of original monument set documents the intent.
The 12 mile arc of Deleware is a good example.
Its original (imprecise) layout was lost, or quite nearly obliterated. The Corps of Engineers laid out a 12 mile arc which was by no means the same as the original 'lost arc'. The courts rejected the newer 12 mile arc. The original arc IS the boundary regardless of any original inaccuracies or paucity of existing monuments. So the arc is now best effort to recreate the original. It's has multiple radii.
Larry Scott, post: 433140, member: 8766 wrote: The 12 mile arc of Deleware is a good example.
Its original (imprecise) layout was lost, or quite nearly obliterated. The Corps of Engineers laid out a 12 mile arc which was by no means the same as the original 'lost arc'. The courts rejected the newer 12 mile arc. The original arc IS the boundary regardless of any original inaccuracies or paucity of existing monuments. So the arc is now best effort to recreate the original. It's has multiple radii.
That's an excellent example that goes back to original intent as the arc does not follow the commonly accepted State lines between PA and DEL where the normally accepted State line is in the thread of the Delaware River.
I have dealt with the arc on several occasions in south Jersey as that arc drastically has an impact on shipping ports and peers. The original intent has always been held and the arc overlaps the thread of the river.
After pleading with these superior GPS measurement professionals, what I am told in return gives me the impression that "retracing federal interest lands" (the word retrace is their word, not mine), you can't goof around. Federal interest lands require no goof ball surveyors. no fudging. you have to do serious survey work for the feds. you low life, incompetent, inferior PRIVATE surveyors are unacceptable. (this from a private surveyor licensed in my same state, much younger than I)
PS - I have never met a government surveyor, BLM, USFS, etc, dozens of men and women, that say this or show any such principle in the field. I have had MY section corner rejected because I did not find the original stone which took them weeks of searching for with crews to find, but that's it, and I AGREE with that.
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 433089, member: 12536 wrote: Or, am I completely mistaken? I am now told by surveyors, quite younger than I, that when laying out "Federal Interest Lands" with GPS, long-existing private surveyor lines set with transit and chain constitute "gross errors" and therefore can not be accepted by the Government. Because of this reasoning, I now have pincushions all over my county, over the matter of a few feet here and there.
Please advise.
My experience is the opposite. The problems I run into are usually created by "old hands" who know better or have become lazy.
For example, I mentioned to another surveyor that I was doing work in a particular section with two monumented positions for the C-1/4 that were 60 ft. from each other. I was able to find only one of the monuments. The surveyor whispered back to me that they had pulled the offending monument because they felt the surveyor that set it had screwed up in accepting an erroneous position for the S-1/4 Cor. The surveyor was a past county surveyor and didn't want anyone to use that "bad" monument, so he fixed the problem with a vise grips.
In a second example, I mentioned to another county surveyor that I had found his monuments for a junior lode claim set on a senior placer claim when the record clearly showed a gap of 4 ft. between the claims. The other surveyor calmly stated that the U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor that surveyed the lode claim was a VERY good surveyor, but had inexplicably screwed up the position of the lode claim's end line by 4 ft. They felt compelled to fix the deputy's "blunder" by rejecting the original evidence and placed their monuments where the deputy "intended" to set them. Unsurprisingly their plat made no mention of the conflict.
In a third example, the old hand surveyor conducted a monumented land survey of a lode claim that was patented as being 2.0 acres. His plat showed six stones he found (no description other than "found a stone") along with graphically showing the record positions (no ties to or description of any of the corners) of 3 out of the 5 senior claims in conflict with his survey. His plat stated that the acreage was 5.2 acres instead of the true acreage of 2.0 acres. No monument records were filed and the owner, thinking that they miraculously acquired an additional 3.2 acres sold the claim at a sizeable profit. In order to properly show the conflicts and the three discontiguous tracts comprising the lode claim would have required the old hand to find or set 27 corners. Oh, and the monumented land survey was done with RTK GPS! Even a nominal amount of research would have shown the errors of his ways, but it is obvious that he never acquired, let alone read the patent, nor did he bother to even glimpse the Master Title Plat or Historical Index!
Almost all of my work is with mineral surveys. I find the "young hands" to be very conscientious about their work. It is the "old hands" that invariably want to "fix" things. The old hands are also more apt to ignore upgrading substandard monuments, set their shiny new monument next to the original stone (so everyone else knows they were there), fail to file monument records, and fail to conduct diligent searches of the original monuments because those corners are in thick timber or on gnarly exposures or just because of sheer laziness.
From the information presented I can see four possible options here:
- Relax. There is nothing you can do about it. Someday someone else will have to address it. Each landowner can work in their own way to resolve whatever problem they have with the survey. This PLS is superior to other surveyors because they are working for the Federal Agency.
- Go to the Federal Agency and explain to them what is going on and what problems there are going to be in the future if they allow this to happen. There are examples of this happening in other places. Could it be that there is some complicity on the part of the Agency? Maybe it is more likely that there is not a person at the Agency that will understand what is being done and why it is a problem.
- Get the property owners together that are affected and have them file a class action suit against the surveyor and the client. Sounds expensive!
- Turn in the surveys and the monument records to the State Board so they can fine the surveyor and the client and demand that all the bogus monuments are removed and the surveys redrawn and rerecorded.
It will be interesting to see what PLSC thinks of this, their position on it and what action they are willing to support.
Myself, I like #4 so much that I am willing to volunteer some time to research records and help put that together.
As a point of clarification to help understand what would appraoch would be taken around here. Are these dependent resurvey done under contract with the BLM, or are they surveys done for other agency's as part of different project?
Gene Kooper, post: 433144, member: 9850 wrote: No monument records were filed and the owner, thinking that they miraculously acquired an additional 3.2 acres sold the claim at a sizeable profit.
nice
