I trust that you'd since read the other rules of the TBPLS that do require documentation in the form of a description of monuments set and found, both on maps and in written descriptions.
I think we understand each other by now. And if we don't, I don't think restating what I've already said will help foster any additional understanding.
Shawn Billings, post: 343831, member: 6521 wrote: Not one of those statutes mentions ID caps.
The statute known as Rule 663.17(d) of the Texas Occupations Code contains the provisions for professional identification on all monuments set by a registrant, if practical. Obviously, the test of practicality is with the TBPLS, not the surveyor, so the burden of proof is on a surveyor who is able to set an iron rod but fails to place a cap or other means of professional identifcation on it.
Caps and collars of the Morasse design are widely used by Texas registrants, but tablets in concrete or stone, and even stamped washers would accomplish the same thing. I see very few tablets aside from those set to mark state highway rights-of-way and I see very few stamped washers on spikes marking boundary corners simply because in most cases they aren't practical, usually for different reasons.
The one exception I can think of where it would be so difficult to set an identified boundary monument as to be impractical is when the monument falls in an existing asphalt pavement. It it possible to set an aluminum cap on an iron rod in a pavement, but the caps tend to get severely beaten up and to seldom survive repaving unless they are countersunk below the depth that the asphalt gets milled. Plastic caps in that situation aren't worth discussing. Countersunk caps in asphalt also pretty much defeat considerations of practical use unless they are in boxes. It's much better practice to set identifiable reference monuments outside the pavement in stable, easily recoverable positions from which plain markers in the pavement can be verified.
My fumbled typing and spell check are always at odds......
Dave Karoly, post: 343770, member: 94 wrote: Stating "Set 3/4" rebar tagged LS1111" has been standard practice in California since at least the end of WWII and common before that it just doesn't occur to me someone would do otherwise. Likewise with "Found 1" iron pipe, tagged LS1111."
Yes, I've never understood why a surveyor who is obligated by law to set monuments with professional identification would not bother to mention what that professional identication was so that the next surveyor would be able to confirm it and identify the monument from it.
Which office practice, specifically, are you suggesting that we review? I've stated about 20 times in this thread that I believe it's good practice to describe ID caps on monuments (found or set). Is that more of your "logic", presuming that because I don't find it statutorily mandated that I'm not doing it at all?
Shawn Billings, post: 343939, member: 6521 wrote: Which office practice, specifically, are you suggesting that we review?
I have understood from your continued objections that you don't believe that Texas surveyors are required to fully describe the identifiable monuments that they are obligated to set on the plats and written descriptions they produce to represent the surveys that placed the monuments. That is frankly such a strange contention that it is reasonable assume that you have some vested interest in not giving full descriptions. The obvious reason that comes to mind is that you have conducted your practice according to the ideosyncratic interpretation that you've promoted.
If in fact you have just been playing Devil's Advocate to allow me to correct you, that's fine, too.
A long ... long time ago, it was determined that political & religious posts would not be allowed ... and it makes sense.
It appears that the Texas law does not specifically state that the cap needs to be identified in a map or description, but common sense dictates one to describe the cap.
Why doesn't Texas change "common sense", into a common sense addendum, through a white paper or some more official avenue, than to begin(possibly), to levy off $1500 fines for something not specifically required?
There are democrats, independents and republicans in America .... and they each seem to understand and interpret the same things very differently.
The reason a federal government recipe for a baker making chocolate chip cookies for the military is so volumous, is because if something is not specifically stated ... it's left to interpretation.
Pass a law or regulation and leave the "interpretation", activities to the judges.
I think the issue is a whole lot less unclear than that. Texas law (as quoted above) explicitly requires registrants to set markers that are traceable to either them or to the entity that employs them. Texas law requires registrants to describe boundary markers that they set, both on maps and in the descriptions they write, and it requires them to describe the boundary markers that they find, both on maps and in written descriptions.
This whole discussion really reduces to whether one can describe a rod and cap monument, or any other monument with professional identification, without actually including a description of the cap or other feature bearing the professional identification.
Until just a day or two ago, I would never have thought in my most fevered imaginings that anyone would seriously contend that a proper description of a rod and cap monument needn't actually mention the cap, that the unidentified rod would be sufficient.
I assume that it won't be long before someone insists that they aren't required to describe the caliper and species of bearing trees or any mark found in them, that a call for "a tree" meets the Texas standards.
This entire topic has been kicked around for years. A lot of it has to do with the requirement of recording your surveys, which many states require. I happen to fully support this regulation.
SOP in my world is to cap my set monuments, tag found ones, and report them on my recorded map and depict them on the map accordingly. That's all per statute in the 3 states I'm licensed in. Pretty simple and doesn't take any time, and protects the public.
But every state has their own regulations, along with a certain element of our profession who tend to not exactly follow them. Some get reported, some get discovered by the next surveyor so the food chain continues, some just die before discovery takes place. But the main thing to me is if the found monument is within a reasonable proximity of where I'd set one, and who (John Q Public) is impacted if I disrupt that apple cart.
Wayne G, post: 344032, member: 7871 wrote: SOP in my world is to cap my set monuments, tag found ones, and report them on my recorded map and depict them on the map accordingly. That's all per statute in the 3 states I'm licensed in. Pretty simple and doesn't take any time, and protects the public.
That's essentially the system we have in Texas, except that the recorded map is primarily used in new subdivisions of land and detailed metes and bounds descriptions that should give all the essential information that would be on a map are used for just about everything else.
It is particularly important that new subdivisions be monumented with markers that can be later identified and that the replaced markers be distinguishable from the originals. Simply being meticulous about setting identifiable monuments and describing them properly is half the battle.
I suspect that a system that depends upon maps getting recorded every time a surveyor passes gas in the vicinity of a property could work well if there was an active policing of substandard submissions.
In all my years I have never described an ID cap....
I would state something akin to a "Wilson capped 5/8" iron pin" ... BUT I never ... not once ... ever describe an ID cap.
In hindsite, maybe I was wrong ...
Now let's see ... description ...
A 5/8" iron rebar found with a dark blue-colored 1-1/4" diameter, black filled lettering, centered with a black dot and stamped "J.N. FRANCIS" above the dot and "P.S. 6916 below the dot, and noted that the dot, "N. FR", and "S. 6", are partly obliterated through the process of being smashed. Also note that while the said pin appears solid, it extends about 5 inches out of the ground and the dot on the cap is misplaced by a bend on the pin, about 0.17 east, although the top 1-1/2" of pin appears to be re-set(?), vertically. The cap is also split on the west side and appears to be somewhat loose on the pin ...
How far can we really go with this stuff? Especially with no specifics on what, how and why to describe the found item and to what end?
A thread like this makes me so much more certain that giving up my license was the right thing to do.
AND ... if I wait a few years, maybe I can buy and old decrepid transit and 300' long chain and do surveys in one of the states where a discussion of doing away with the licensure board is on the horizon.
Seriously ... about the cap, common sense ... as I see it rules the day ... in absense of a written regulation.
You know what Kent ... most of the complaints delivered my way through the years referred to too much "extraneous", information ... "extraneous", being in the eyes of the "GIS professionals(?)".
So, while I generally agree with your thoughts on this matter, and while I've always strived to describe things in very definative manners, I KNOW, that a lot ... a lot, of surveyors don't see things quite the same.
I'm not about to say to anyone that since "I", interpret something "my", way, that everyone else's interpretations are wrong.
Gee whiz ... if an argument can be made for the meaning of what the word "is", is ... isn't it possible that a non-specified, un-written requirement, which is nothing more than an interpretation, could be interpreted more than one way?
They probably shouldn't - one has only to watch the news for about 15 minutes these days to observe that rules are not equitably applied...
I have no expectation whatsoever that my Board would reach the same conclusion twice given the exact same facts.
