I had a location within unsurveyed lands that needed to go to some regulators for review and acceptance. This a POD (point of diversion) checkbox. The checkbox requirement is to place the POD within a 40 acre parcel of the PLSS. The POD lands approximately 1/4 mile south of a surveyed township line, there is no 40 acre tract existing since the township doesn't exist. Also, along with the position requirement, there is a sectional corner tie requirement which could be a tie even miles away. In this case there is a section corner on the township line about 1700' from the POD. If there were sections in the unsurveyed lands it might land on what could be very near the south line of a Lot 4 of a Section 2 or across into the SW1/4NW1/4 of a possible Section 2.
I file the project only showing the POD in unsurveyed lands with the section monument tie and get a comment back that it has to have a 1/41/4 location.
I calculate the position of the POD and it falls close to a calculated line between "Lot 2" and the SW1/4NW1/4 of a possible Section 2; by a few feet it falls just south of my cal line, which is all BS anyway and I put that on the filing that it's falls in the SW4NW4. I get another rejection that by the regulators calculation the POD falls in the NW4NW4 which probably would never exist since it's a Section 2, but exhausted by now I went ahead and placed it in the "NW4NW4" of "Section 2" of a possible township.
What a load of BS.
I did add a note that this is unsurveyed lands and the location was only a possible description of a possible future survey of a possible township.
They didn't mind that note.
I think in your shoes I would have pushed back against referencing the non-existent township and survey. Tell them their checkbox/regulation needs to reflect reality, not South Park's Imaginationland. But then, I don't have to deal with your regulators and whatever contaminants are in their drinking water.
I hear you.
I was tempted to tilt at that windmill. However, each resubmission can extend the approval by 3 months, it's not worth it for the client. It's all BS anyway, I have lat, long data for the POD which is on un-patented land so there aren't any conflicts in ownership. And of course I have two different agencies to deal with (fed and state) and they both got on board. Win for me.
I'll probably never see this same thing again.
Point of diversion (POD) - is this some kind of surface water permit?
@mightymoe - the whole “not worth it to the client” is SO frustrating. You’d really like to put in the effort to “educate” these reviewer-types but you need to “cooperate and graduate” for the good of the project overall. The continued incompetence of the reviewers is enabled by project timelines and budgets.
I'm not opposed to jumping into the tar pit for some of these questions. I even gave a presentation concerning some of these issues of platting for the water people. It was helpful,,,,,I think. That presentation explained that new Lotting on BLM plats for split estate lands won't effect title to the fee surface owner if it was patented. In other words if Lot 1, Section 1 was patented but mineral rights were kept by the public, then a new plat is issued and the Lot is shown as Lot 5, that doesn't change the fee surface title to Lot 5, it remains Lot 1. So, there becomes two different descriptions for the same area, Lot 5 for fed interest, and Lot 1 for fee ownership. Same thing for water rights that happened prior to the new plat. And then there are independent resurveys that can really get wild.
That 1700' tie is definitely doing some heavy lifting there! It’s wild how some review processes just can’t compute lands outside the grid. I’ve run into similar issues with GIS systems that force a 'best fit' into a township that doesn't exist. Sounds like you handled it the only way a sane person could.