I was in a meeting today and the question came up as to who owns the section corners, and what is the local governing bodies responsibility towards them.
Well my quick answer is the "BLM owns original monuments, they set them, so they're theirs". If the local jurisdiction has requirements to assure their maintenance, than so be it. Maintain them by whatever it takes.
More I think about it I wonder if I should have suggested that the public owns those monuments. They just "hired" the BLM to set them, even if we weren't alive yet. If the current local jurisdiction requires maintenance by whatever means, well....
But still, who "owns them"?
See THIS KING COUNTY web site.
From the site:
> The Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors sent out a letter from which a portion is as follows:
> “Citizens of Washington have invested in property boundaries and survey monumentation since before Statehood. These monuments are not only important to delineate public and private ownership; they are critical. However, property corners and survey monuments are often endangered, and in many cases destroyed, by road and utility construction and maintenance. In 1969 RCW 58.24.040(8) initiated a process to protect these monuments assets and responsibility was assigned to a variety of governmental and professional people. Employees of government agencies responsible for the work must take the lead in following this law and thereby protect these monuments.”
I think you are right; when you say the public owns them.....
> But still, who "owns them"?
Why wouldn't the ownership be transferred to the underlying title owners adjacent to that corner? If a portion is public or all of it public say within the ROW then there's your answer but If I own the NE quarter of a section then those Quarter corners marking my corners are each 25% mine.
:good:
No one owns them but many have a need for their continued perpetuation. Thus, in Kansas, the statutes clearly read that each County is responsible for the perpetuation of them. Sometimes it takes a little education on the statutes to wake up some reluctant County commissioners.
Now for my story. A true story, by the way.
Back in about 1989 or 1990 I was working on a survey of a small rural tract for which one side was a county line. The quarter corner required was half in one county and half in another. The critical section corner, however, was the common corner to four counties. It was getting late in the afternoon as I set up the total station over the section corner to sight the quarter corner and set a couple property corners. It was difficult to see the bar deep in the hole so I put a nice, new, shiny quarter atop the bar to improve the visibility to ensure being set up properly. A bit later I moved to another location. It was maybe 15 minutes later when I sent the rod man back to the section corner. The quarter was gone! Someone had to have come through the intersection very slowly, spied the hole, got out to see what was in the hole, and took my nice, new, shiny quarter. I told the rod man I was going to call all four sheriffs to report the theft of 6.25 cents in each one's jurisdiction.
That's why I always used a dime instead 😀
[sarcasm]If a neighbor moves one onto my property, do I own all of it now?[/sarcasm]
See [msg=261067]Shenanigans![/msg]
This topic ir right up there with the eternal question, "How wide is my property line??".
:good:
Given that theory, compute the ownership of the initial point:^)
It is exactly .01' wide and neither adjacent owners may encroach upon it.
It is also sacred and holy.
😉
I don't think anybody "owns" them, however many people and entities have a vested interest in them, even though most don't realize it.
Now, see, I had it all wrong!! I thought you went to opposing corners, counted the total number of found iron rods, concrete monuments, wooden hubs, etc. and divided the length of the lot side by the total number reached above. That, usually, would give a result much smaller than 0.01'.
> Why wouldn't the ownership be transferred to the underlying title owners adjacent to that corner? If a portion is public or all of it public say within the ROW then there's your answer but If I own the NE quarter of a section then those Quarter corners marking my corners are each 25% mine.
Because they are part of the land boundary infrastructure going beyond just the parcels adjoining at the PLSS corner. Perhaps if the monument marked a land corner with no significance beyond the adjacent corners, there is no public ownership component.
Through the 80's the number one bandit in WA state in number of monuments destroyed without records was you guessed it, WADOT. Thousands per mile in 200 ft swathes through burbs. A few PE's got their hands slapped. By 2004, the WADOT was finally hiring LS's to take care of record mons the Dot was pushing around.
I think it is like navigable lakes and rivers which are the property of no one, or rather, the public at large.
If the corners are tied to the records, in several states the federal government transferred PLSS original record responsibility to those respective states.
So in those where the public land surveys have been substantially completed, excepting Oklahoma, the original records have been transferred to the States, did the "ownership" of the section corners go with the records?