I'm bringing this subject, first broached in "The Fox is Guarding the Hen House" http://www.amerisurv.com/content/view/13254/153/, back to the front.
As you might have read in this month's article "How to Build a Client Base", http://www.amerisurv.com/content/view/13359/153/, we really are as busy as a one-armed paper hanger trying to get our office opened in Green Valley. We did our first surveys yesterday and today, and today logged two more calls for surveys! Hey, what a difference a year makes!
There have been quite a parade of claims that I should have done this or that differently in the previous threads. Thankfully there have been many intrepid souls who have responded to the few philistines better than I could; setting forth that our attention should be directed to the message (removal of boundary experience) rather than the messenger.
Several have been the official voices stating that "they are not aware of any effort by NSPS/NCEES to remove boundary experience as a pre-requisite for Land Survey licensure". Apparently they are being disingenuous, for the NCEES December newsletter ( http://ncees.org/about-ncees/licensure-exchange/licensure-exchange-december-2014/) has FIVE indications of efforts to do just that. Here is the first one of the five.
"Because Wyoming law defines the teaching of upper-division design subjects and performing research investigations as the practice of professional engineering, it is not necessary for the candidate to have industrial experience." (page 1, top of second column)
This substitution for practical experience is 100% applicable to the proposed re-definition of Land Surveying, i.e. "Because Idaho's new definition of Land Surveying includes all measurements made above, upon or below the earth in the practice of Land Surveying, it is not necessary for the candidate to have boundary experience."
Chad Erickson
Idaho looks to be trying to get everyone under the license umbrella who has been doing any kind of measurement? I am licensed there and under current law basically anybody can do anything EXCEPT for boundary work WITHOUT being a PLS.
SHG
Hello Shelby,
Your take is correct, but add in the flux that in the same proposed legislation essentially ALL of the newly added activities are excepted from prosecution when performed by an unlicensed individual. So why all the work both to present the legislation and to defend it? Only one thing remains, construction and GIS individuals can now have the prestige of being licensed. Well, there will be another consequence, the Land Boundary Survey profession will take a large hit, which I think will be fatal to it.
see my thread in the previous post about the well-known efforts of the BLM and GIS industry to push for a national cadastre and the implications of opening up the land surveying profession to an umbrella of other trades with no boundary experience requirement.
https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=294639#p297863
Wow, good stuff. That was doctrinal thesis quality. I've pondered the cadastre connection before but didn't have the background or cajones to address it. Well said. We should call you Doctor Rambelon.
Here is a metaphor for what you said; As a hobby I once owned an orchard of 200 trees near Wenatchee, WA. In the mid 1980's the orchardists were bombarded with propaganda about the value of Free Trade, "just look at all the foreign countries you will be able to send your fruit too". And we bought into it. Why should legislatures bulk when their own orchardists were not only in favor of removing trade barriers they were funding the campaign. What the orchardists weren't told is that China had 200,000 acres of new orchards just coming into production, not to mention Chile. The upshot is that American orchardists were so devastated by the resulting foreign competition that about 40% of the orchardists had to cut down their trees and burn them. (It cost more to perform the required spray than the fruit was worth.)
To make it simple; We surveyors are being deceived into supporting and funding (as in professional communication firms) the very engine that will destroy our profession. In ten years our rate of consumer fraud will increase from 50% to 90% and the legislatures will be forced to act. Here comes the national cadastre. What is the downside of a national cadastre? Basically there are no private property rights under a cadastre. The inexperienced government GIS agent shows up at the site of a boundary dispute and declares the resolution, from which there is no appeal. These are prime conditions for graft, corruption, loss of property and rights and the very end of our profession.
Chad Erickson
