Standard of Practice

[7702]

Someone posted this a couple months ago and didn't get a response:

"is there a penalty for when other surveyors remove a monument because they think it was set improperly ?"

The BPELS bulletin #31 (Fall 2005) describes the following enforcement case:

"The Board investigated allegations that a land surveyor violated Business and Professions Code section 8780(b) in that he was negligent in removing a monument he found while surveying a property. The standard of practice is to leave the monument in place, identify it on the survey map, and show its position and relationship to what has been determined to be the correct location. The land surveyor was ordered to practice land surveying within the standard of practice for the professiona, and to pay a fine of $250."

Word for word, except that I removed the name of the land surveyor for obvious reasons.

[Gromatici]

I believe that surveyor didn't file a CR or RS to perpetuate the location and that's why he got in trouble. Otherwise each circumstance is different. Found 1/4 cor stone marked 1/4 Sec. for section ..... replaced with 2" galvanized steel pipe with 3" Brass Cap stamped "LS 8226 - Boundary Marker - Sec. 14 E1/4" and so forth. Seen it on maps going back 100 years. Still in practice in this area. My boss replace a 100 years old redwood stake on a job. He had to remove it after he preserved it's location and replaced it with a Galvanized steel pipe and brass cap.

[7702]

"The standard of practice is to leave the monument in place, identify it on the survey map, and show its position and relationship to what has been determined to be the correct location."

This seems to imply that the surveyor removed the monument because he did not agree with its location. Apparently he didn't want its location perpetuated for reasons unknown to us.

[E_Page]

There isn't enough info to know the details of the case, but in general, IMO, there may be certain circumstances in which it would be appropriate to remove a monument, or perhaps even inappropriate to leave it in place.

If you found a monument in an incorrect location, and hed strong evidence that it had been inappropriately moved from its original (and correct) location, would it make sense to leave it in place? Wouldn't that create confusion among the landowners?

If that BPELS statement was meant to be an all encompassing statement, I believe that the BPELS expert retained in that case erred in his or her interpretation of the law and what constitutes Standard Practice. But I suspect that there is more to the story and it may be a matter of a surveyor removing a monument only because he or she disagreed with it.


Edit: If a monument is removed, regardless of reason, it should still be referenced on your map with a tie to your other found or set monumentation.

[goodgps]

I agree with Evan the terrible,
Not enough info in the original post to arrive at a clear cut answer.

a hidden meaning could be "if" a surveyor set corners then discovered them to be in error due to a bad calc etc. Why would they be left in place when it is a simple human error, caught before they were used.

another meaning is puling out an "adversaries" corners just because one thinks the other is just "not correct" Wrong ! I say . . . .just plain wrong !

A thing to remember, Any survey, . . .yours or a collegues, is equally important to the public whether it be the survey community or pvt citizens.

All of us truely wish to provide the best survey for record that we can. If a monument is found to be in error, especially from a recent survey, Its a great idea to call the responsible surveyor to discuss it.

Now if the surveyor you disagree with is diseased, then it MAY be a great idea to first check your own survey, considering that the olde tymer may have had some privvy info that has been destroyed. [or he may simply be in error]

I'm wondering ? where do we draw the line of disagreement ? a foot, a tenth a few hundreths ?

"Good"

[7702]

"diseased"??

Good,

Forgive me, but I can't stop laughing long enough to type anything meaningful.