> Does the 1990 opinion letter negate the 1974 letter? The 1990 letter is from the Board Legal Affairs department (Staff Counsel), so since it's a "legal" or lawyer written opinion is it now the accepted opinion of the Board that it's not required?
I think BPELSG has stepped away from offering formal interpretations of statutes except in specific enforcement cases, for the same reason it withdrew its published policy decisions a few years ago: it's seen by some as regulatory rulemaking without following mandated administrative procedures. While I believe the 1990 opinion to be correct, I don't think you're going to get a definitive response from BPELSG to a "what-if" question.
As a side note, I'm not opposed to tagging found monuments, I just don't believe it's legally required in California. If I find one that I know I'm going to accept, I'll tag it if convenient. However, the two scenarios that make me appreciate having the option are:
1. I don't know if I'm going to accept the monument at the time I locate it, and returning to the site just to tag it is going to cost more than the value gained from the tagging.
2. The monument doesn't lend itself to tagging. As an example, some years back I tied a couple of railroad spikes in Placer County that I ended up accepting for position. They were in the centerline of a busy road on a blind curve, and were found beneath at least one lift of AC pavement. Tagging them would have required a traffic control operation and a substantial oversizing of the pavement holes in order to gain adequate access to mark the monuments. In my opinion it wasn't worth the effort, and my Record of Survey adequately described the monuments for posterity.
Eric, I like the way you think. And, have followed that philosophy for all my career.
However, it is in the neighborhood of a surveyor, who capped all things, and I don't really want to ever find his cap on it. And, what I found is, I believe an original. Anyway, I am glad that this thread got this many responses, and my logic FOR THIS JOB is going to be that the survey is for my client, and he'd like it capped, as my way of marking scent on it.... 🙂 ok, carry on!
And, I marked it for him!
N
It's not a private work of art. The purpose of capping a monument is to make it more identifiable. Monuments exist to mark boundaries and anything that can be done to improve or rehabilitate them is furthering the goal.
I have done it but not often. I capped a couple of pipes that the brass caps had been stolen. I took a page out of McMillan's book and stamped "FD 1 I.P." on them plus there is a note on the Record of Survey filed for public record.
Some Counties require it on subdivision maps (they can't on R/S maps).
I was mentored in my early years in California to tag found monuments only if they play a significant role in the survey solution, and if they don't already bear a tag. The reasons are as Evelyn and others state above. In Washington, where I work now, the common practice is not to tag them, for similar reasons to those stated above by others. Having seen both lines of reasoning, I'm with my original mentors. I would never tag a monument if I'm not also recording and explaining it. I cannot believe that tagging a monument makes you responsible for more than what you would be responsible for anyway by stating you are accepting it. And, yes, wrap some new ribbon around it, and that's all.
Ryan / Jim,
The Board generally follows the legal opinion that was requested and received in 1990 from Don Chang (Board's legal counsel at the time) and consider that this opinion supercedes the 1974 letter issued by the Board's Executive Secretary.
Ric
Thanks for clarifying Ric.
Its a requirement in Arizona...
From "ARIZONA BOUNDARY SURVEY MINIMUM STANDARDS":
"When accepting a found monument of the surveyed property that does not have any record
or physical evidence identifying its creator, then where practicable to do so, the surveyor accepting the monument shall affix his/her registration license number to the existing monument."
I once had a piece of land. The back corner was set by my great grandfather, and I proudly would visit it and look at it and know that his hand was the one that placed it in the ground. It gave me peace in knowing that I was preserving the spot that he had chosen..as he had placed it. Then one day I went out and found it all flagged up, and the axle he had placed, that had been leaning a bit to the north, was all banged and pounded on the top and was set upright, and did not look the same as the one my grandfather had placed. Was it right, what had happened here?
That was just a story. And I was talking to myself, because I have done a few things that I regret.
The few times I have set tags in untagged pipes was just to give the following surveyor a point of reference of where I had taken the location shot. I believe that the pipes were a bit larger than a normal two incher..It's a harmless action and it helps the next guy.
My opinion: If it is not tagged and there is no reference in the public record, but it fits and you are accepting it, why not set your monument and tag at an offset of say one foot from the older pipe, document as such on your CR or ROS and preserve the history of the found monument.
I really like the idea of tagging a found monument.
Problem with a cap is Now that you've capped it, no one else can . . . kinda like . . . now it's "your" pin.
If there were a way to "tag" a pin with an I.D. indicating the pin being found(used or not), in a way which can additionally be tagged by other surveyors, the pin would/could actually obtain a more historic presence.
Pins with a "provable" historic presence, in my mind are much better than pins which "might" to be the same pin that Joe Blow found ten years prior.
The "tagging" would probably be like the kind of tagging that goes on a bird's leg or something.