hellsangle wrote:Who thought this was a good idea?!
...
Are we promoting expert measurers or boundary retracement?! Are we promoting the pin-cushion effect?! Are we thinking like engineers - all caught up in the numbers?!
Crazy Phil's two cents.
Phil, the first time you wrote it I thought it was intended to be a rhetorical question. Reluctantly, I will wade into these waters with you.
To answer your question, it was determined to be a good idea to have an accuracy standard and statement by the American Land Title Association (title companies and their respective attorneys) and the National Society of Professional Surveyors (representing all land surveyors nationally). They collectively decided it was a good idea when they wrote the
minimum standards dating back to the early 1960s. These
minimum standards apply equally to all land title surveys – Tupelo same as San Francisco. Land title surveys are boundary surveys.
The quality, or lack thereof, of land surveying and mapping varied so greatly the title insurance industry needed a uniform
minimum standard for the underwriting. The minimum standards included an accuracy qualifier i.e. rural, urban in the early standards. The land surveying community, including input throughout the nation, collaborated with all parties to determine the
minimum standards for land surveying and mapping. Similarly, there was a National Map Accuracy Standard and today, the ASPRS standards - together with several other standards i.e. first order, second order etc. Accuracy is not intended to be a foreigner to the land surveyors work product.
Interestingly, the same argument for
minimum standards was made – due to the poor quality of land surveying - in 1889-90 to license land surveyors in California. I am sure there were folks against the idea.
Minimum standards, by definition, are the least amount of surveying information required to be surveyed and/or mapped. Of course, Mississippi has likely joined NSPS as a state organization and California is one of two holdouts not to join NSPS. Luckily, NSPS recognizes land surveying as a profession and has fought for seven years to restore the land surveyors’ professional status - after a California entity had land surveyors reclassified as laborers. As a Californian, why did it
have to be us? This entity described land surveyors as mindless dolts wandering about the landscape. I recall something about land surveyors being incapable of independent thought and reliant upon engineers for direction. Personally, I think being described as being incapable of exercising judgment is offensive to the profession. Fortunately, NSPS saw it the same way.
I expect there will always be folks that cannot, will not, ever support the idea of work product that meets the
minimum national standards. It always catches my ear when I hear someone refer to the ALTA Land Title surveys as "the Cadillac" of land surveying when in the name it is a
minimum standard.
I have visions of land surveying being a licensed profession that is not in name only. A profession, shielded from deregulation, that guides and provides oversight of the trades, technology and data – not in the way of pounding stakes in the ground, selling hours like a commodity and exploiting their own people or being exploited by others (contractors or engineers). I am hopeful those days acting and being treated like a mindless trade will soon be over. Arguing against the implementation of
minimum standards to preserve or achieve professional status is like arguing the idea of bloodletting of yesteryear - there will be a day when it will seem ludicrous it was a thing. I will not be asking to borrow leeches - unless I am fishing Walleye - to cure ailments. The bloodletters may prevail - the best of luck to each and every one of you. However, I will not be sitting on my hands.
Pro tip: Measurement accuracy standards have little to nothing to do with boundary establishment. Outside of measurement they are practically unrelated. Folks understand the correct boundary could be better established with a rag tape and transit than static GPS.
Reasonable people may disagree.
DWoolley
