Kent McMillan, post: 345122, member: 3 wrote: Yes, but you've already admitted that you aren't a Texas registrant, so your lack of familiarity with the laws of Texas that govern surveying practice is entirely understandable, specifically your ignorance of Rules 663.19(b) and (e).
Boy are you good, or what, as it should take a real stretch of the imagination to connect any of my posts/comments to 663.19(b) and (e) unless I was asleep at the wheel when I made them.
While you are no doubt more familiar than I am, I am quite familiar with the practice of surveying in Texas. Or, at least I once was as of 4 years ago. But, whether I am, it is irrelevant to my participation in this discussion.
Shawn Billings, post: 345127, member: 6521 wrote: The rule 663.17a says that a set monument must be set to a sufficient depth, etc. There would be no need for a rule saying "set to a sufficient depth" if "set" were a verb meaning it was placed in stable soil, or whatever nonsense you dribbled out there.
Do you state in your plat or descriptions that you set the monuments to a sufficient depth to maintain a stable location or do you rely on reader of your work to merely presume you did so? It's really that simple.
The rule that preceded Rule 663.17(a) was Rule 663.11, effective May 30, 1980, informally known as "The Monumentation Rule" at the time. It read as follows as originally adopted:
663.11 Certification and Monumentation of Surveys.
When delineating a property or boundary line as an integral portion of a survey (survey being defined in the Land Surveying Practices Act of 1979, å¤2, subsection (1) or (3)), the land surveyor shall set, or leave as found, sufficient, stable, and reasonable permanent survey markers to represent or reference the property or boundary corners, angle points, and points of curvature or tangency. All survey markers shall be shown and described with sufficient evidence of the location of such markers on the surveyorÛªs plat. If the land surveyor shall prepare a written description of the surveyed premises, he shall include in that written description:
(1) reference to and a description of the survey markers as shown on the plat, and
(2) the seal and signature of a registered or licensed surveyor.
The bolding for emphasis was in the rule as originally adopted in 1980. While you would be too young to know this, at one time surveyors were setting wood stakes and 40d or 60d nails in dirt for boundary markers. Obviously, neither served the reason why surveying was a licensed profession in the first place. That purpose was set forth in the provisions of Rule 663.1 that were in force in 1980 and remain so.
663.1 Ethical Standards
Inasmuch as the practice of the land surveying profession is essential to the orderly use of our physical environment, and inasmuch as the technical work resultant thereof has important effects on the welfare, property, economy, and security of the public, the practice shall be conducted with the highest degree of moral and ethical standards. And inasmuch as the state legislature has vested in the Board the authority, power, and duty to establish and enforce standards of conduct and ethics for professional surveyors and licensed state land surveyors to ensure compliance with and enforcement of the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying, the following standards of professional responsibility and rules of conduct are hereby promulgated and adopted by the Board.
If you don't think that the requirement that "the land surveyor shall set, or leave as found, sufficient, stable, and reasonable permanent survey markers" is essential to "the orderly use of our physical environment" and "has important effects on the welfare, property, economy, and security of the public", then I can understand why you would find the placement of unstable and insufficient markers possible by a Texas registrant and want to insist that an essential part of a description is that the monument is actually sufficient to "retain a stable and distinctive location". The problem with that argument is that ALL markers are to comply with that requirement, so it it worthless as an element of the description beyond mention of those that are in concrete or set in rock or otherwise expected to be of even higher stability than any marker in soil can ever be.
In the case of an identifiable monument, obviously not every monument bearing professional identification will be identical. So a proper description of the monument requires a description of its distinguishing characteristics in a way that "1/2 in. iron rod" does not.
The problem I have is it is a vague regulation leaving its interpretation to the members of your Board. This can become a moving target. The current Board seems to interpret "describe" as Kent does. The Board members can change and the new Board may interpret "describe" as IP SET or IP FOUND. Then later a new Board may interpret "describe" to include not just what Kent interprets "describe" to mean but also including the length of the rod and the manufacturer, making everyone following the current interpretation now in violation. Regulations should be written clearly specifying exactly what they want.
My suggestion take a picture and insert it into your drawing, but then maybe that won't meet your Board's interpretation of "describe".
Kent McMillan, post: 345081, member: 3 wrote: Sorry, but you obviously haven't been reading this thread.
Au contraire, I have been carefully reading this thread with great interest. You just choose to either obfuscate or pontificate when confronted with a question/viewpoint that you dislike. Unless there is something wrong with my comprehension, it seems clear to me that you advocate that failure to mention a cap ID on a plat or in a description is a violation of 663.17(d), when it is not.
As of this post, you have yet to respond to my question regarding your comment concerning Shawn, the location of which is post #142 on page 2 of this discussion, not #160 as I stated earlier. You either did not catch this mistake or ignored the question. I believe the latter is more likely the case, as it seems to me that you are generally quick to point out mistakes.
Today I made my first attempt to describe what I set in a more complete fashion.
I wound up with "set drill hole filled with red nail polish in pan of curb".
B-)
Well, that is a description I've never heard before. Is fingernail polish so permanent that there's no reason to mention the diameter of the drill hole?
But, what brand of polish was it?
Dan Dunn, post: 345152, member: 911 wrote: The problem I have is it is a vague regulation leaving its interpretation to the members of your Board. This can become a moving target. The current Board seems to interpret "describe" as Kent does. The Board members can change and the new Board may interpret "describe" as IP SET or IP FOUND. Then later a new Board may interpret "describe" to include not just what Kent interprets "describe" to mean but also including the length of the rod and the manufacturer, making everyone following the current interpretation now in violation. Regulations should be written clearly specifying exactly what they want.
Except there is a professional surveying purpose to monument descriptions, which is to enable some surveyor in the future to identify some boundary marker that you set today to define a boundary as the same boundary marker and thereby demonstrate with certainty where you marked some line or corner.
This is a particularly important problem when tracts are created since if a monument can be shown to have been placed by you as original suveyor, then it has a special status as superior proof of the position of the corner you set it to mark. If you want to create stable boundaries, identifiable boundary markers are the obvious way to take the worry out of being close.
If you were setting boundary markers to mark corners where you had determined them by resurvey to be located, a proper description of your markers would also allow some future surveyor to know with some certainty exactly where you determined the corners to be. Presumably, you will have drafted either a metes and bounds description or a map, or both, that will end up in the public record to show the evidence upon which you based your conclusions.
So, the basic task of description will remain unchanged, namely: to provide such details of the monument you set that will allow a future surveyor to identify it with some certainty. It all boils down to a checklist of details that ideally in sum describe just those properties of that certain thing that are apt to survive your departure from the site. I read a metes and bounds description that an engineer had written back in the late 1940's that described an "iron stake" and gave the further information that it was "on the north side of a pine lath". Thanks a lot, pal.
I fully agree with you about describing objects both set and found " to provide such details of the monument you set that will allow a future surveyor to identify it with some certainty".
Regulations should also be written to allow a future surveyor to interpret it with some certainty. If a specific format is required it should be stated in the regulations.
Ambiguous regulations are no more helpful then ambiguous descriptions of corners.
I like to set my caps; so that you read them, standing on the south side, looking north. I told that to my buddy and he said that it was "anal" of me. I said it wasn't of him; to not do that.
Do I put this in the descriptions of the markers I set? No; it's a secret and only me and my buddy know....
RADAR, post: 345188, member: 413 wrote: I like to set my caps; so that you read them, standing on the south side, looking north. I told that to my buddy and he said that it was "anal" of me. I said it wasn't of him; to not do that.
Do I put this in the descriptions of the markers I set? No; it's a secret and only me and my buddy know....
I do the same thing. Set the cap so it reads normal as you face north. Also not included in my description.
Kent McMillan, post: 344828, member: 3 wrote: Yes, if the rules that the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying had not been codified into State law, I suppose it would be important to try to figure out what they were from reading the minutes of board meetings. 🙂 Happily, anyone who is interested can read all of those rules in the Texas Occupations Code.
Talk about obfuscation. Codification of the Rules should have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.
Are you going to provide me with an answer to my question in post #143 above? This marks the 4th time I have asked, but who's counting.
Andy Nold, post: 345192, member: 7 wrote: I do the same thing. Set the cap so it reads normal as you face north. Also not included in my description.
It's a good thing that you don't. Otherwise, you might be taken to task for failure to state the meridian and whatever the variation, declination or mapping angle may be.
Kent McMillan, post: 345143, member: 3 wrote:
The problem with that argument is that ALL markers are to comply with that requirement (emphasis mine), so it is (sic) worthless as an element of the description...
Yeah, that's the point. All set monuments are to comply with both 663.17(a) and 663.17(d). It is unnecessary to describe monuments on a plat or in a description in such a way as to evidence the compliance with either statute. Clearly it is presumed that the surveyor complied with the law. If it is presumed that the surveyor set the rod in stable ground (663.17a) without requiring him to state such on plat or in description, then it should be equally presumed that he placed an ID cap on the monument (663.17d) without requiring him to state such. This, in fact, is at the heart of the original question. Omitting an overt description of either should not be evidence that the statute was not satisfied.
Furthermore there is no need to imply that I don't think surveying is important to the public... blah, blah, blah. Those kinds of comments are distracting from the adult conversation we're supposed to be having and are really nonsensical. My how the mighty have fallen. Come back to the adult table when you are ready.
I was once told to do that and try to follow that rule. Reason? If I find a cap I set that isn't facing north I know it's been disturbed or reset. Also, I believe it's always good to be mindful just on account of because.
I was also told that if I found a monument that had been uprooted and reset it, I should reset it facing south.
Kent McMillan, post: 345083, member: 3 wrote: And the fact that they did not violate 663.19(b) and (e) is exactly the point that has thus far eluded you. That means that their descriptions of the boundary monument set as being merely an "iron rod" with no mention of professional identification were correct and so the violation was of rule 663.17(d), not any subsection of 663.19.
That sure is a convoluted way to determine 663.17(d) was violated, and I am having difficulty following your obfuscation. Would you please reword the last sentence so that even a hillbilly might understand it?
Once again, I want to ask you whether you are concerned about the boardÛªs misstatements of Rule 663.19(4) and (6) in its minutes concerning the three complaints that are central to this thread. For what it is worth, unless I have lost count, this is the 5th time I have asked this question.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with security features like that. In truth, I've yet to see a rod and cap monument reset with sufficient craft to make me think it hadn't been. The aluminum caps show hammer marks pretty well.
The only thing being wildly exercised is your imagination. You've MISSED the ENTIRE premise of my original question, and served your crazed interpretation of what you seem to think I was asking along with a side of character assassination. Are you really sure this is the best tactic to promote your point of view? From over here it seems incredibly infantile.
Shawn Billings, post: 345198, member: 6521 wrote: Yeah, that's the point. All set monuments are to comply with both 663.17(a) and 663.17(d). It is unnecessary to describe monuments on a plat or in a description in such a way as to evidence the compliance with either statute.
Okay, so you're admitting that you think that "set 1/2 in. iron rod" is a description that would also cover any variation of professional identification that might be affixed to that rod. So Shawn Billings describes all of the boundary markers he sets as "set 1/2 in. iron rod" and when it is suggested that he has violated Rule 663.17(d) says in his defense: "But everyone knows that I was SUPPOSED to affix professional identification, so that is proof that I did!" Future surveyor comes out and finds a rebar with a cap and doesn't know that Shawn had the quirky habit of misdescribing his monuments and concludes from the evidence of the record that the capped rebar can't be the original marker.
If the worst thing a surveyor does; is not use a lot of verbiage in the description he reports, for the corners he finds or sets. If the rest of his work is spot on; he does diligent research; his measurements are accurate and verifiable: is he really that bad?
I know it's a stretch; the chances are, he's slacking in the rest of his work. If that's the case; then he should mend his ways or get out...
