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lts overlay season
Posted by daniel-ralph on May 15, 2020 at 5:41 pmAsphalt pavement overlay season is upon us and for me that mean reviewing where I am going to lose boundary control monuments. I know that the law stipulates that city engineers shall not obscure monuments but they do and don’t care. In my local, the city two weeks ago ground down a quarter mile of pavement carefully avoiding manholes and such but got every one of the brass surface monuments that have been there for several decades. They are on notice, I’ve filed a complaint and nothing will happen.
The latest is from a neighboring community which has hired the low bidder from over the mountains to grind and repave with “kevlar fiber reinforcing”. That means to me that it will be harder to search for the monument that they have already ground out. Anyone else come up against this kevlar stuff or is that a sales pitch?
bill93 replied 3 years, 11 months ago 11 Members · 19 Replies- 19 Replies
I’d bet my rock bit would have no trouble getting access to a control point if it were still there.
Many pavement updates around have a crew go along the roadway and remove anything they find in or on the pavement, including RR spikes, 60d nails, rebar, caps and other miscellaneous objects.
Asphalt overlays are a huge problem in Florida. The reason being FL law requires permanent control points (PCP’s) be set at all pc’s, pt’s, pi’s, pcc’s, prc’s etc. on R/W centerline’s in all recorded plats . When an overlay occurs, poof, every bit of control is eliminated. Most title or mortgage surveyors (in FL) are too lazy to dig up original pcp’s so they go with a best guess as to where P/L’s lie. After this is done a few times the whole thing ends up in a hodge podge nightmare. ????
Surveyors should work to get that changed to allow ROW edges OR C/L to be monumented. You may lose a lot of edge monuments, too, but it won’t be all at once.
.The company doing the improvements should have to hire a surveyor to document the control prior to construction so that it may be re-established if there is no way to preserve it.
Utility markouts are the law. Survey markouts should be included.
It’s better to be able to reproduce where a monument was verses trying to guess after it is gone.
A fiber optic line was put in an old development near me. The cable was placed 10 feet behind the curb. That is roughly the row line. Every monument, cap, pipe and everything in between was wiped out. Everything…
This seems to be a universal problem. It comes from a lack of respect for survey monuments and their essential importance. A fix will only come when some combination of entities (survey/title/legal/real estate/etc.) decide to work together in a lobby powerful enough to overwhelm legislators to establish and enforce laws that would stop this foolishness.
Working together? Not a strong suit for independent surveyors.
- Posted by: @holy-cow
Working together? Not a strong suit for independent surveyors.
Sad but true. I live in a 205 lot subdivision developed by one of my clients that my company set all lot corners during initial house construction. The subdivision is some planners idea of “flowing curves”, a pain for surveyors, but aesthetically pleasing I suppose. Anyway I live at a “T” intersection which has one of the few straight lines in the subdivision out front. An overlay is in the County Budget but not yet scheduled so I set front witness corners for my lot in the curbing and offset 4 C/L PCP’s with witness corners. It will be interesting to see how future surveyors proceed. After resurfacing I plan to re-establish the control I offset.
Survey for nothing and the chicks for a fee……..
????
I heard, some where, that engineers have lost their licenses; because they failed to provide protection for survey monuments, on their projects.
Maybe you’re reporting to the wrong people. Try Pat Beehler with Washington DNR or James Wengler and Aaron Blaisdell with the BOR. I’m sure these guys could shake things up. I’m on the Washington State Survey Monument Preservation Committee; you can send me the information on where and who is doing the work, if you’d like, and I will pass it on to the rest of the committee. This has got to stop!
I’m with Steven on this; I’ve tried to get survey monuments included in the call before you dig laws, to no avail. What are they afraid of: cost? What do they think a survey will cost if there are no monuments in the vicinity?
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will!@dougie I agree with you, but I think there are two reasons that survey monuments aren’t included in the call-before-you-dig laws. First, monuments don’t erupt into flames, electrocute anyone, or flood the neighborhood when you accidentally dig them up — and thus don’t cause a sensation to attract politicians’ interest. Second, big utility companies probably have a lot more legislative lobbying power to get laws enacted that protect them from the immediate costs of accidental damage to their facilities, as compared to individual landowners who — maybe someday — will bear the costs of re-establishing survey monuments. Still, it’s true that some states have criminal penalties for destroying survey monuments, but I think effective enforcement is nearly nil, especially when it comes to enforcement against the government itself.
Happens here all the time. I’ve been complaining to anyone who will listen until I’m blue in the face. Capitol projects people simply do not care. They see it as an unnecessary expense. I’m not referring to my mag nail or a lot pin. I’m talking about original GLO section corners, quarter corners, centerline monuments, either buried under 6′ of fill or obliterated entirely along with all accessories and never perpetuated. It makes my blood boil. State is a little better but may take many years to get around to replacing anything or recording a record of survey, but the local government, nothing and they have made it clear they are completely indifferent to the problems they are creating. Utilities are no better, but at least some crews will put a corner back in the general vicinity of where they think it was before they dug it up.
WillyDo call and document your call to 811 or call before you dig to cover yourself when your helper drives a pipe or rebar thru some unmarked underground utility.
When in doubt, teach your helpers to dig and search for underlying problems before setting monuments where utilities are and backfill and compact the ground or add some redimix, gravel or other stabilizers as you refill the hole.
Oh yeah, there is a law, but funny thing, a law that no one enforces doesnt do anything.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.- Posted by: @dmyhill
Oh yeah, there is aN OUTDATED law, but funny thing, a law that no one enforces doesnt do anything.
The punishment is cheaper than complying. doesn’t take a lot of brain power to figure out which way will save you money…
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will! Part of the problem is ignorance of the laws, especially with municipalities that have never understood the laws and never retained a consultant that would inform them. The other part is just not conforming to the code.
When you tell the local highway department or district that you and other surveyors will be digging big new holes in their shiny new asphalt they can change their tune/plan fairly quickly.
When the Board comes knocking on the Engineers of Municipalities door asking them why they did not comply with the monument preservation code they can change their tune/plan fairly quickly. In Idaho monument preservation is the responsibility of the PE or municipality, as applicable. This doesn’t mean the PE can replace the monuments, it means they need to hire a PLS to document, monument and record the proper documents when monuments are disturbed or destroyed.
We reset close to 100 monuments in Idaho last year and probably half that in WA due to overlays, grindings, new paving, etc….. If you can get on the right side of things contractually and financially it can be quite lucrative.
@dougie
Is there any punishment?
Have you heard of even one disciplinary action resulting from the destruction of a monument?
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.There are a couple of cities that have decided that it is part of owning the road and serving their citizens to know where the roads are, and to perpetuate the monuments. I am not sure what their motivation or budgeting comes from, but it tends to work.
http://surveycontrol.bellevuewa.gov/
Overlay all you want…they may be obliterated, but they are not lost.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.@dougie I will forward the messages I’ve been sending. I’ve learned to include the mayors on my emails to these city engineers which has gotten me quicker responses. One engineer asked why I cc’d the mayor, LOL. I still don’t think they get it. I’ve asked them to provide me with the overlay program map and I will scout these areas on my own time, which I seem to have a lot of. I’ve also offered to meet with road crews to teach them how to search for monuments that might not be evident. In light of the current restrictions that will have to wait.
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