Wildfire Recovery RFQ

[Jim Frame]

A colleague passed the following along to me. How many things can you find wrong with it?

Request for Quote Surveying Service for Wildfire Recovery Efforts

[REDACTED], a [REDACTED] California based company, has been tasked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with Private Property Debris removal of over 1,000 properties affected by the recent wildfires. As a part of our contract requirements we need to Confirm and mark each individual property boundary. ECC is requesting a price quote from your firm to provide surveying team(s) for 3 counties – Napa, Mendocino, & Lake. Due to the unique environment at each site I have outlined some of the requirements below:
• Obtain property boundary information
• Provide all personnel and GPS Equipment to confirm and mark each individual property boundary. Marking should be semi-permanent such as wooden stakes and easily identifiable to future site workers i.e. colored marking ribbon etc.
• Address should be clearly legible using indelible ink such as sharpie, etc.
• Start date would be immediate
• Site personnel are required to be 40 hour Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) trained with an up to date refresher and current medical clearance. All certifications, to include respirator fit test, should be forwarded to ECC prior to mobilization.
• Site personnel must be in Level C PPE prior to entering the property. ECC will obtain Right of Entry (ROE) prior to requesting services. Level C PPE shall consist of:
◦ NIOSH approved full or half-faced Air Purifying Respirator with P100 filter(s)
◦ Protective outerwear such as Tyvek
◦ Nitrile inner glove with leather outer gloves
◦ Steel toe boots with protective covering
◦ Hard hat
◦ Safety glasses
◦ High Visibility vest, when not within the property i.e. on the street
• Estimated project duration is 6 – 8 weeks
• Expected work hours 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. 7 days / week
• In most cases survey crews may work ahead of recovery crews to limit overtime
• GPS data of completed properties shall be sent to ECC on a daily basis
• Price should be based on a per parcel unit rate
• Pricing should reflect the following - "Workers employed by contractors or subcontractors will be paid the Service Contract Act, Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rate or State of California Department of Industrial Relations wage Rate, whichever is higher."

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at any time.

[E_Page]

Whoever wrote this seems to think that "obtain[ing] property boundary information" will be as simple as getting a coordinate dump from the County GIS.

Obviously not a surveyor, yet dictating methods.

GPS data of completed properties submitted daily? Again, they think they are asking for a simple coordinate stakeout service and have no concept of what is required to determine property boundaries.

Assuming that there is a survey company ready to go with 20 or more up to date HazMat trained & equipped crews, if the work is limited to only newer subdivisions (and providing sufficient control survived the fires), it might be doable.

For the semi-permanent markers to be legal, emergency legislation allowing for those markers in this specific set of circumstances would need to be passed.

Unit price per parcel is ridiculous. There are parcels ranging from less than 10,000 sf residential lots in new subdivisions to rural and semi rural parcels described by M&B and encompassing several acres, if not several dozen or several hundred. Under normal circumstances, reasonable estimates could range from $1000 to $100,000 just to identify and mark boundaries of different parcels.

I understand that they need these stakes simply to properly catalog items they find during cleanup, but they have no idea what they are asking for when they ask to have the property boundaries marked.

Project duration 6 to 8 weeks? Could probably have the research done for about 70% of those properties by then, given enough staff. And could have info ready to go to send crews out to perhaps 20% of properties in 2 to 3 weeks.

Those areas are also going to require very local expertise for many of the parcels that are not lots of newer subdivisions. I doubt that many, if any local surveyors are HazMat prepared. I'm sure that none have enough HazMat prepared field crews to do this work if the project duration were 6 to 8 months.

I would bet that whoever wrote up the RFQ has some experience in residential development as an engineer or construction manager. On a job like that, identifying the lots is a simple stakeout job and per-parcel unit pricing is normal.

Approaching this task that way will unnecessarily create chaos around existing property boundaries for decades to come. Even so, I'll bet some big engineering company comes in and does it as if it is nothing more than a huge stakeout job.

For inventorying items found in the burnt areas, they would be much better off to have survey crews working along recovery crews. When something is found, locate it and catalog it based upon geographic location. Link that to specific parcels as the parcel boundaries are able to be identified properly.

Doing it the way they propose, they are going to find themselves neck deep in litigation over mis-assigning items to specific parcels before they get much more than halfway through their 6 to 8 weeks.


Also, I've worked on projects in Level C gear about 25 yrs ago. Sounds like it hasn't changed much. It's like working in a wearable sauna. The crews will not be able to work fast, and if the weather is warm, they won't be able to work long without fluid breaks. In Level C (mask on) or Level B (tyvek suit but mask off), you aren't permitted to eat or drink anything in the "contaminated" area - at least on the jobs I was on. You had to go back to the safe, or cleanup area, at least partially decontaminate, then eat or drink what you need, suit back up, including taping your rubber gloves & boots to the tyvek, and then head back out on site where you left off. If they are spending 10 hrs per day at the site, they would be doing well to accomplish in that 10 what a crew might accomplish in 3 to 4 hours under normal conditions.

[mpallamary]

Yikes! The State Board should have an investigator go along to start writing violations up!

[mpallamary]

Any reason the name of the company is redacted?

[Jim Frame]

Any reason the name of the company is redacted?

Because the Powers That Be that operate this place are terrified of liability. I figured if I didn't redact, the thread would get pulled.

[mpallamary]

Got it. Thanks!

[David Kendall]

That's great, thanks for sharing it. I hope they get 'er done in 6-8 weeks!

Sounds like big fun with the Tyvek and mask and all.....

[subman]

Unfortunately the rules we have in place (The PLS Act) to locate property lines are over kill (IMO) for the purpose of documenting debris removal quantities at the lot level. Numerous local agencies have lost multi-millions of dollars in FEMA reimbursement because their mass debris removal plans did not address quantifying debris removal at the lot level. If the Damage Survey Report covered debris removal for lots 1 - 12 inclusive of Tract 12345, FEMA denied the claim.

How precise do you need to be so an excavator and dump truck can clear a lot and sign off that 300 cubic yards of debris was removed from lot 5. Assume the unit cost is $10/cy for debris removal. 300 yards is $3000 per lot. What is the bid to prepare a ROS or CR for each lot. Say $1500. That is half the cost of the debris removal. Is something wrong with that picture.

Maybe there needs to be an exception created in the PLS Act for the purpose of documenting debris removal limits within a declared disaster area if FEMA is going to remain steadfast in their rule making. The rules we have are not applicable for the task at hand IMO.

[Mr. Smith]

We had a fire like this in Weed CA and the department of Emergency Services removed all materials from each lot in (7) large subdivisions some subdivisions had maps others were historical in nature requiring chain of title. After all the removal of destroyed homes etc. I noticed that all the property corners (or most of them) have been obliterated. After contact with the City I explained how the local controlling authority would be liable to locate the missing corners.

After a donation from a local business we were tasked to replace and map all seven subdivisions and this was no small task.

Brian

[William Magee]

Unfortunately the rules we have in place (The PLS Act) to locate property lines are over kill (IMO) for the purpose of documenting debris removal quantities at the lot level. Numerous local agencies have lost multi-millions of dollars in FEMA reimbursement because their mass debris removal plans did not address quantifying debris removal at the lot level. If the Damage Survey Report covered debris removal for lots 1 - 12 inclusive of Tract 12345, FEMA denied the claim.

How precise do you need to be so an excavator and dump truck can clear a lot and sign off that 300 cubic yards of debris was removed from lot 5. Assume the unit cost is $10/cy for debris removal. 300 yards is $3000 per lot. What is the bid to prepare a ROS or CR for each lot. Say $1500. That is half the cost of the debris removal. Is something wrong with that picture.

Maybe there needs to be an exception created in the PLS Act for the purpose of documenting debris removal limits within a declared disaster area if FEMA is going to remain steadfast in their rule making. The rules we have are not applicable for the task at hand IMO.

I'm not sure I can agree with that line of reasoning from a purely surveying standpoint. To create an exception for the purpose of expedited layout and staking of lines could only be accomplished by allowing disregard for proper research and full monument recovery efforts. While I can see your desire to allow for marking of approximate boundary lines for expedited clean up efforts, for one there is no such thing as approximate boundary lines. Either you know where the boundary is or you don't. Second, allowing marking of boundaries without the proper research or full monument recovery will inevitably lead to destruction of many of those monuments not recovered and/or marked to be protected in place.
And last, I don't think it to be a stretch of the imagination to believe that there will be reliance on an expedited slop survey by others than just those counting beans for the cleanup effort.

Being as each area will have different issues such as modern suburban subdivisions with a good level of original monuments in existence versus older divisions with no called for monuments/deed splits only, etc for which evidence of occupation limits have been destroyed, I cannot in good conscience agree with a wholesale exception to the PLS act. Perhaps instead for the later case, this would be a good opportunity for the local agency to allow the debris cleanup boundary layout to be monumented and reflected as part of an agency Official Map.

[mpallamary]

At the risk of belaboring this matter, this is the very reason I suggested that the survey community, i.e., CLSA - The California Land Surveyors Association get involved as EARLY as possible. For God's sake, we are supposed to look out for these things and to protect the public. We have a duty to the community and to the profession and we must act! Once again, if nothing else, this is a perfect example of how CLSA should get involved and take a leadership role. Why is this so damn difficult?

[mpallamary]

code of ethics.jpg

I have been doing some research into this matter and I believe I have located the firm making the solicitations. Someone needs to stand up and engage these folks. Is there anyone in CLSA who has the fortitude to handle this?

http://www.ecc.net/2010/index.asp?page=97

These folks pride themselves on a Code of Ethics. Who is going to call them on this?

[Peter Ehlert]

Mike, that image is fuzzy and unreadable. Source?

[mpallamary]

Try this:
http://www.ecc.net/2010/Pdfs/ECCCodeOfConductWeb.pdf

[Jim Frame]

Is there anyone in CLSA who has the fortitude to handle this?

In the mean time, I sent an inquiry to the email address found on the FEMA website: debrisquestions@caloes.ca.gov. It looks like CalOES is the lead agency, even though the contract is through USACE. I briefly noted some of the problems and asked for contract administrator contact information. I'll let you know if/when I receive a response.

[mpallamary]

Excellent. I sent a letter of concern to the Board asking that they look into it.

[Mr. Smith]

I applaud all your efforts:
To us the destruction of monuments is a travesty but remember with all the environmental restrictions most people cannot afford to remove fire debris from the property I do not know if insurance even covers this, so OES is actually doing the public a favor by clearing lots.
Every case is different, in Weed a lot of the destruction was Mill housing (houses built many years ago for workers at the lumber mill) many of the current owners did not have insurance so the clearing of the lots was a huge help. In the bay area maybe the land owners are not so hard pressed.
We have statutes in place to protect monuments, it is the duty of the LOCAL surveyor to address this in public forum such as City Council or County Supervisor meetings, get the County Surveyor on board.
The first thing contractors need are lots surveyed so footings can be dug without setback problems, the last thing we need is 15 different surveyors attacking 30 lots in a subdivision with different resolutions.
I don’t know if contacting CLSA, FEMA or OES will get you very far in the short term, I recommend LOCAL surveyors get together and educate the Local Controlling Authority’s.

Brian

[mpallamary]

Yes, I agree and once again, that is why I initially raised these concerns at the outset. We dealt with this in San Diego in 2003 by taking immediate actions and engaging the County right away. There is simply no reason CLSA cannot take a leadership role here.

[E_Page]

Subman,

I think you are viewing this with the perspective built on the incredibly extensive public records available in the LA area that would make ready re-establishment of boundary corners doable even with a significant loss of monuments in any particular area. In many areas at that end of the state, 70% to 80% of the monuments in a particular locale could be disturbed beyond use or destroyed and the remaining monuments still be sufficient to readily reconstruct the boundaries of most, if not all parcel boundaries in the immediate area.

Most of N. CA is far different. To be certain, there are many areas that are in subdivisions where those conditions exist, for the limited areas within and sometimes immediately adjacent to the subdivisions. But for most of the area affected by these fires, the existing monumentation may have been roughly equivalent to the 20% of surviving monuments had the fires been in the LA area. In some areas, the pre-fire monumentation may have been even less.

Down south, nearly all monument locations which are controlling of more than just the coterminous parcels have been referenced on multiple record maps spanning over several decades. That is true for some such points in N CA, but many may only appear on one or two maps. Some may only appear on the Rancho Confirmation Survey map and nowhere else.

Good compliance rates with the recording act came much later in N. CA. In urban areas, good compliance rates may have been seen in the 50s or 60s, but in many, particularly rural areas, regular compliance may not have come until the 1980s. Many monuments marking controlling locations might appear only in unfiled records or critical info linking currently existing features to original corner positions might only have been reflected in private records.

The types of and disparate sizes of parcels, the types of descriptions, the types and age of evidence which is controlling and which may or may not have survived the fires, although very similar in many areas closer to cities and towns, can be vastly different even at the edge of these communities. These conditions would make a per-parcel fee model extremely difficult, if not impossible except for those areas covered by modern subdivisions.


While I agree in principle with Magee on this, the idea of "temporary" and "approximate" corners is rife with problems that they are certain to create, I also can understand the need for some manner of identification in within a short amount of time and that the precision with which we would properly mark property boundary points is not required for inventory purposes.

I don't see a series of "Official Maps" as a means to legitimize hastily re-established boundaries as being viable for most areas either. Where good and extensive records exist and sufficient control to reasonably re-establish controlling points remains, then any differences between quickly re-established boundaries and the original boundary locations would likely be relatively small, and in light of the destruction, negligible as a basis for a boundary dispute. That's because in such cases, the job is much closer to being more of a math & measurement exercise and less of an investigation and analysis exercise. Looking at maps of the area of destruction, I would guess that such an approach might be viable for about 60% of the parcels, but that those parcels cover 10% to 20% of the land area affected.


Again, the way I can see this working best without causing the future havoc that "temporary" and "approximate" corners would most certainly cause, would be for the surveyors not to set corner stakes, but to locate inventoried items as they are found and then relate those locations to particular properties as the boundaries of those properties are able to be located according to an analysis of the best remaining evidence, and then permanent and proper monuments placed (and reflected on properly filed maps) after the cleanup has been completed.

If I were in a position to submit a proposal for this work (or to write the RFQ), that's how I would do it. I would field some crews to find and locate as much boundary evidence as remains and might be found among the mess, and other crews to follow the cleanup teams to locate and assist in the inventorying of items to be cataloged. That approach would have a minimal effect on the efficiency, or possibly even add to the efficiency of the cleanup crews while saving the community from another form of destruction which could prove to be extremely costly to the community.

[E_Page]

Mike,

It's an easy thing to witness a calamity, stand back and yell "SOMEBODY, DO SOMETHING!!!" But that in itself is not particularly helpful.

What, specifically, would you suggest the CLSA do as an organization? And knowing its governance structure, that every major action, policy, or statement must be approved by the entire Board of Directors before it is implemented or takes effect, and that the CLSA has not created any plans that automatically get executed upon the occurrence of one or more of the many natural calamities that have a likelihood of occurring in CA, what, specifically would you suggest?

Who, specifically, do you think has not only the responsibility, but the authority to don the CLSA super-cape and fly to the rescue?

Bear in mind that there are a few in CLSA leadership who visit this forum semi-regularly. It is not part of the designated duties for the members of the Executive Board, nor of the Chapter Directors to follow these discussions. Have you contacted either one or more members of the Executive Committee or the Directors (Representatives) of your Chapter to offer specific ideas?

So far, it seems like Jim Frame has taken the step of contacting the parties issuing the RFQ. Perhaps you could suggest that to the Ex Comm in an email that carries the tone of offering a potentially useful suggestion and devoid of a tone that screams "Why Haven't You Done ANYTHING?!?"

It may be that they already have done that very thing. It may be that there have been ongoing efforts to have the CLSA involved that have not yet been made public.

Posting general accusations (for lack of a better term) that CLSA is being ineffectual or negligent on a matter of concern to the profession on this forum is equivalent to standing in front of a crowd and trying to whip up a frenzied protest chant without knowing what the CLSA leadership may have already done or might be doing on our behalf. It brings attention to you as the guy who made a public call for "some" action, but offers nothing to actually help the situation. In fact, it serves to alienate the very people you should be making suggestions to, if they pay attention to your calls at all.


Because of the HazMat element, the vast majority of members are not able to help with survey efforts in a physical capacity, at least until the cleanup has been completed sufficiently to alleviate the HazMat concerns. I have no idea if the OES or the USACE are open to input from the CLSA or if they are locked in to whatever procedures they've concocted. I see this as something that the local surveyors, being the ones most familiar with the local conditions and concerns, need to take the lead on with the State-level CLSA being available for support and assistance.

The local surveyors are in the best position to determine what is and will be needed. Also, don't lose sight of the fact that CLSA is comprised of people who, for the vast majority of us, have full-time jobs and lead busy lives. None, or very, very few of us, including anyone in CLSA leadership can put our current responsibilities on hold to pursue this or any other matter of interest to CLSA as a full time endeavor. Some of us can make some time either to represent CLSA in some official capacity in order to voice our concerns and hopefully advise those in overall charge of the recovery efforts. Some of us can make some time to help with research, fieldwork (in non-hazardous areas), calcs, and/or drafting when help in those areas might be needed. Many of us can afford to contribute to a relief fund. And it might be that someone in CLSA might be able to establish and organize such a relief fund. Most of these things are small, part-time or one-time efforts that will need to be made by many, many members of CLSA and can't be placed wholly on the shoulders of the "leadership" of CLSA, whichever group you would define that as being.

So again, please, specific helpful suggestions, directed respectfully to those who you believe are in a position to get the ball rolling.

[mpallamary]

Thanks for comments. As you know and as I posted previously, I was on an ad hoc committee here in San Diego in 2003 after we went through a devastating firestorm. The local chapter got together with the County Surveyor and we developed a plan to address the problem. We were proactive and we got right into it. A number of problems arose and we dealt with them collaboratively and we did it as volunteers through CLSA. We learned many lessons. Did you read my post on that?

Wildfires are not uncommon and as such, CLSA should have some recommendations for surveyors and counties to deal with this issue. I suspect we will see more of them. How hard would it be to develop a set of guidelines for counties and cities to consider?

This is an opportunity for the association to make some positive contributions to the community and provide some guidance to the profession. The last thing we need is unqualified people instructing surveyors how to do their job. As an aside, when I had my larger company, all of my employees went through OSHA training.

I have contacted the Board about my concerns as I am sure you have. I do not think responding to any of your other comments will be productive.

[mpallamary]

Hi Evan,

I do not recall seeing your comments in response to my other initial posting.

http://clsaforum.californiasurveyors.or ... f=6&t=7418

You are also, no doubt, familiar with the extension conversation I had with Tony Cinquini.

[mpallamary]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Fire_(2003)

[Jim Frame]

Maybe there needs to be an exception created in the PLS Act for the purpose of documenting debris removal limits within a declared disaster area

I don't see a need for an exception. If it were me, I'd rubber-sheet AP and/or subdivision maps over satellite imagery and pick parcel corners coordinates from that for stakeout in the field. I'd call the parcels Debris Removal Parcels, assign a serial number and associate a street address for general identification. I'd have the field crews take context photos at each corner marked and have them immediately report any egregious apparent disagreement with occupation lines for expedited review and resolution. That'd give the cleanup crews something to work with, and any disputes over insurance coverage or ownership of salvaged items could be ironed out later if and when a legitimate boundary survey is deemed necessary. That way the disaster assistance authorities wouldn't have to get involved in boundary surveys and muck up the place with substandard work.

[subman]

Evan/Jim

Appreciate your comments. I hope my brief comments did not create the impression that I did not believe that permanent monuments did not need to be set at some point in the recovery process. I think the best time would be when the mass debris removal was completed, when the hazardous conditions have been mitigated and before new building commenced. To meet FEMA's requirements and the relatively short window that exists (180 days) to qualify for reimbursement, I think something along the line of "construction staking" is more appropriate during mass debris removal instead of permanent monuments that will likely get disturbed during the land clearing. When the land clearing is done the "construction staking" is pulled up and permanent monuments set to re-establish property lines. Jim's comments above seem to be the approach I was trying to convey.