City/County Monument Preservation

[kwilson]

According to "Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location" second edition (1981) 2-48:

Principle: In general but not always, the county surveyor's records (or city engineer's) are prima facie evidence, whereas that of private surveyors are not.

Boundary Control and Legal Principles Seventh Edition (2014) state on page 388:

Principle 21 City engineer's monuments long acquiesced to are presumed to be correct; the contrary must be proved.

It has long been my understanding from other multiple sources (most of which I cannot name at the moment) that found City monuments are to be accepted for boundary control unless you can definitely prove otherwise.

Preliminary to road reconstruction, many cities are tieing out street monuments and then replacing them after construction with a new monument in a monument box (handhole). However, the type of record that the individual City creates varies. Some show multiple monuments with ties between them and they definitely state that the found monuments are at the centerline or offset line to the original street centerlines. These records are very helpful as they allow us to use the monuments for boundary control and provide measurement ties in case some are missing.

Another type of record that I am seeing now is simply a found monument with four swing ties with no indication that the found monument is a centerline intersection, offset or anything. There are no ties to other adjacent monuments. Yet the City surveyor places a shiny brass cap in a monument box. Do they not have an obligation to indicate that the monument is indeed at the centerline intersection or offset thereto? Should they not provide ties to other monuments to prove by reference that the monument indeed fits the record dimensions?

It should also be noted that many valid boundary control monuments in the street are missed by incompetent crews not trained that there are other monuments besides those in an easy to find monument box (buried iron pipes, etc.)

Does the above practice of not indicating whether or not a found piece of iron is indeed a boundary control monument fit the principles and practices described in 8771 of the LS Act?

[David Kendall]

Another type of record that I am seeing now is simply a found monument with four swing ties with no indication that the found monument is a centerline intersection, offset or anything. There are no ties to other adjacent monuments. Yet the City surveyor places a shiny brass cap in a monument box. Do they not have an obligation to indicate that the monument is indeed at the centerline intersection or offset thereto? Should they not provide ties to other monuments to prove by reference that the monument indeed fits the record dimensions?

….

Does the above practice of not indicating whether or not a found piece of iron is indeed a boundary control monument fit the principles and practices described in 8771 of the LS Act?

Sadly, the answer is yes.

I do not like this practice. Setting a shiny new monument in a well in the middle of the street for anyone to find and use with no practical verification of the value feels like negligent behavior to me. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean you perpetuate it. Might as well leave a loaded handgun in the mon well while you’re at it….

I tied one that was set in the manner you described and perpetuated an old original subdivision pipe that was noted as bent and disturbed on several prior corner records. Guess it’s not disturbed any more but validated at a location several feet away from the original map monument.

The monument I found was a big punched brass disc with a LS number but was not stamped as a county or city monument. There were many other shiny new centerline monuments found in the region with the same number and methodology. I have seen this in other counties as well.

I believe it is bad practice and a waste of public funds to file worthless records in this manner. Do the public a favor and verify the monument that you spend five thousand + dollars to perpetuate.

This could be discussed as a professional practice procedure and addressed by legislation, it is making a mess out of the public record. I don’t expect any change though, the practice is broad and sadly becoming a professional standard through endorsement by public agencies. Surveyors think they are dodging liability, there is even a slick note on the bottom that disclaims the value of the monument location.

I guess all I can do is ensure that my work has greater practical value and shake my head at the manner in which some of my brethren who are blessed with licenses choose to protect and serve the public trust. Trying not to judge….

[D Ryan]

I'm a big proponent of monument preservation (whoa, that was a bold, risky proclamation). Remember the day when Cities and Counties "mostly" just paved over monuments? I know there's still plenty of that going on, but I appreciate the efforts of CLSA, BPELSG, CEAC, and others in keeping the issue in the forefront and keeping the pressure on.

Monument preservation is just that, not boundary determination. Proper monument preservation entails a good, description, note accessories (if applicable), a documented retracable position, and a record citation, preferrably of origin. Sometimes that means perpetuating monuments whose current pedigree is unknown, or undiscovered and gets put in the record. It may well later turn up in an old record or is called for in a deed, etc. and future surveyors will thank you for preserving or perpetuating it.

The surveyor performing boundary work is responsible for making his own determination of what evidence a monument represents. A City or County Surveyor (or a private surveyor doing a monument preservation record for that matter) representing it as some particular point or "corner" gives it no particular credence. The main thing is that it's in the record with some background information- and a position.

Dave Ryan,
Arcata

[David Kendall]

I must concede that the practice described by the OP represents a slight improvement over the practice of indiscriminately paving ROW monuments.

I suppose that my insistence on association to other relevant record monuments by measurement is a matter of personal standards, not a methodology that public agencies require or recommend.

[kwilson]

Well said David Kendall.

I did a little more thinking and digging in on this.

In the LS ACT 8771 Under the main heading “Setting of monuments in general;monument preservation” item (e) it states:
“It shall be the duty of every licensed land surveyor or licensed civil engineer legally authorized to practice land surveying to assist the governmental agency in matters of maps, field notes, and other pertinent records. Monuments set to mark the limiting lines of highways, roads, streets or right-of-way or easement lines shall not be deemed adequate for this purpose unless specifically noted on the corner record or record of survey of the improvement works with direct ties in bearing or azimuth and distance between these and other monuments of record.”

Note the words "with direct ties in bearing or azimuth and distance between these and other monuments of record"

How does a “monument preservation” surveyor know that a nail, pipe, spindle, spike, PK, pin or any other piece of metal is an actual monument or not? Only by professional judgment when reviewing recorded documents and making measurements to determine their location relative to other monuments and corners. Also many monuments that exist in our streets are not getting found and preserved.

I spoke with two surveyors who do this type of work recently. And it’s about the money. Apparently there is not enough to do things correctly.

Here is a solution to monument preservation. You don’t need to actually replace them with a beautiful, expensive brass disk in monument box. You tie them out to easy to set control points on street curbs or sidewalks and set enough of them so that if some are destroyed you have many others to tie into. You provide a Record of Survey of a decent sized area that ties them together. You indicate the lines that the monument controls and have record and measured ties. There will be a few that may just be independent ties without record data but for the most part future surveyors will be able to use the map and the monuments to actually retrace boundaries. Is that not what “monument preservation” is all about?

[Jim Frame]

Monuments set to mark the limiting lines of highways, roads, streets or right-of-way or easement lines shall not be deemed adequate for this purpose

I interpret "monuments set" in the above to refer to new monuments set by the surveyor in the course of marking the ROW line at the behest of the public agency. I don't believe that it refers to monuments that existed prior to the construction project.

I've done a fair number of monument preservation projects for both city and county in my area. I agree that for something like a large road construction project all the extant monuments ought to be referenced on a final document (e.g. a ROS or one or more Corner Records) in a cohesive manner. But when we're talking about one nail & tag in the sidewalk that's going to be torn out during a single fire hydrant replacement job, simply referencing and replacing the monument and filing a Corner Record is adequate. The monument's provenance and location are preserved so that it can be used by the adjacent landowners and by boundary surveyors, but at a cost that's proportional to the scope of the construction project.

The preservation projects that I've done for the county have almost always been pure preservation jobs with no construction anticipated. These are mostly section corner and quarter-corner monuments at road intersections in rural areas, typically a stone, pipe, axle or iron bar referenced on an old ROS, and often a foot or two below grade. The purpose of the project isn't to resurvey the section, it's to preserve the monument provenance and location in a manner that eliminates the need for the next surveyor to dig up the road. Requiring ties to the nearest monuments of record (often a mile or more away) would dramatically increase the cost per monument, meaning fewer monuments get rehabilitated.