California Surveyors Forums

I doubt I'm the only one who has tried to position an obliterated monument from a filed Corner Record and found it lacking.
Recently I took a boundary job and found the 2 monuments I intended to use were obliterated by wheelchair ramps and new sidewalk. Corner Records had been filed for both monuments, but... neither had points that established a line over the obliterated monument, one used the center of a water valve- unmarked, the intersection of the edge of a driveway with the back of sidewalk- again unmarked, the corner of a concrete electrolier pad- also unmarked. The last point was an existing PK in an aerial target. Though I tried all kinds of intersections, distance-distance, bearing-distance, and bearing-bearing, my results left me with an area of about 2 tenths radius in which the monument could have been. It appears the surveyor who tied out the monument spent about 5 minutes with a robotic instrument on the tie-out. The second tie-out was no better, 3 Mag nails, one of which had been obliterated by repaving, and the corner of a concrete pad. Again I was unable to reproduce the original position within a satisfactory area. What garbage!
In research I have come across Corner Records that tie out monuments with only 3 ties, without establishing a line over the original monument. Really crappy work.
After all the lost monuments, and difficulty getting public agencies to require Corner Records, to find sloppy, nearly worthless Corner Records is a sad reflection on our profession.
I think it behooves CLSA to publish some standards public agencies can use in their Corner Record contracts to prevent this woeful work from being accepted.

I feel your pain, lots of lead and tags gone due to handicap ramp construction.
The way I understand the statute is we now have a before construction and after construction mandate, the latter will involve setting the obliterated corner without you needing to perform a devious survey.
A corner record with 2 or 3 RP’s is a great help for section corners and or property corners that have been obliterated by construction, logging etc.
I remember calculating the intersection from 2 rp’s (get two solutions) 3 rp’s (three solutions) and so on. The two rp solution with bearings or azimuths provide one unique solution, grid coordinates better yet.
Not all surveyors are members of CLSA, in essence you would be preaching to the choir. BEPEELSG would be a better place to mandate. On a more positive note, my observations see much more compliance with the protection of monuments and benchmarks at least with newer construction contracts.

Are there enough surveyors willing to do this type of work? Especially if we get an infrastructure bill or good use of gas tax monies. If a surveyor sees a pavement grinder coming can they pull swing ties with tape and plumb bobs and file a record without criticism on type or quantity of rp’s?

I am sure some will correct me on this, lurkers, please feel free to comment.

Brian

By and large, here in San Diego where this is a monumental problem (no pun intended) the quality of tie-out work is dismal. As a general rule, it is not uncommon to find them with reestablishment to be within a couple tenths of a foot. On projects I have personally worked on wherein I set final monuments down a street or alley, end to end, on a straight line, after they are tied out and replaced through a Corner Record, nothing lines up. As a general rule, instead of using the Corner Record ties, we reset based upon where we located them. I have seen crews tie out the monuments without consideration for slope, taping flat on the ground. Lately, it seems they locate and relocate them using some kind of GPS method and reset them the same way. Of course, nothing lines up and nothing checks. This is called the destruction of the cadastral fabric and it is systematic.

In the end, we must ask, who cares about monuments? Don't GPS coordinates control everything?.

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmerica ... l10No4.pdf

for the sake of discussion
"the destruction of the cadastral fabric" is when an LS sits in the truck or office or ivory tower and watches this happen.

As surveyors we are the keeper of monuments.
.
IF 0.1' is a material discrepancy file a ROS indicating the reset monument is out of position. belly ache to the LS who did the poor work but please do not put another punch on the disk pincushion.

Not here defending sloppy work, as an old school guy lines are set from an instrument (on line) looking down line.

FOR discussion what is an acceptable corner record??? for City and or Rural areas??? 2 rp's 3 rp's 4 rp's Coordinates.........

mpallamary wrote:In the end, we must ask, who cares about monuments? Don't GPS coordinates control everything?

Coordinates are king and this will continue so long as we surveyors foolishly hand over State Plan Coordinates on Records of Survey purportedly in the name of GIS. And the majority here seem to support the idea! Are we dumb or just plain stupid?

Both!

Agreed, plumb bobs and pocket tape
as well as Grid N&E if possible. then after new construction
4 straddlers to set well and brass disk.

Brian

Wait! You want someone to do real surveying? Surely you jest!

Unfortunately they want us, the private surveyor to follow the rules, but the government feels they are exempt due to additional costs to their department, lol.

There are dozens of these around the City right now, getting ready for new ramps. I just put calls and emails into the City and County Surveyor. I'm highly doubtful that they've done any pre-construction search for possible monuments. A number of years ago many monuments were ripped out by similar projects. Will report back.

In the City of Victorville, we are dealing with the same issue. Ramps replaced and old ties destroyed. I believe it should be the local agency or the surveyor in charge of the project to set, maintain, and preserve center line monuments and ties (not all private surveyors follow that rule either). There are many cases I have come across ties destroyed by other departments. I make note and return on a future date to set new ties.

I am currently working on about 50 pre-construction corner records, so not every public agency ignores their monuments!

Olin, I have contacted the City of Santa Cruz, waiting for a response. Can you provide me with some details of the locations for follow up with the City? Please e-mail me at dallas.sweeney@dca.ca.gov

Our govt can find ways to waste money. The "new" HC ramp std isn't that different from the old one but they can justify replacing perfectly good ramps at $10K+ each but not preserve monuments.

Why? It's all based on where the money comes from.

Tustin has a dangerous intersection outside the measure M area and says a traffic light isn't needed but inside the measure M areas they put traffic lights all over and just completely redid a full intersection, within measure M area, to add one left turn lane on WB Tustin Ranch road at Irvine bl. TR road is less than 2 miles long and it doesn't justify the over $1million they spent redoing it.

Olin,
If you need assistance communicating with the City, the fine gentlemen at The Board will assist you and help educate the City if you request their assistance. They are helpful at times!