Serious Question: Legal to Metal Detect on Town Dump's Land

[coinman123]

I think I found a cellar hole in some untouched nice woods. When looking at a property map, I noticed that the town dump, which is around 1000 feet away, owns the woods. I have no intention of going anywhere near the actual dump, and the woods are right next to some hiking trails. I wouldn't go anywhere where it would be illegal, so I decided to ask here to see what you guys think. Should I call the town and ask?

 

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[GB1]

yes that would be wise i wouldn't want to be thrown in jail or pay a hefty fine

 

[GA_Boy]

I would hunt the woods only and stay far away from any dump activities or go on Sunday.
Sometimes it is easier to get Forgiveness than to get Permission.
Marvin

 

[coinman123]

I looked from the road at it after seeing what looked like a huge cellar hole on the lidar. Just a wide and deep tree hole. Oh well, who wants to hunt the town dump anyway

 

[FriscoT06]

Honestly in a place like that I wouldn't worry. I usually ask permission if it is private land. Or if it is city land with a a well manicured lawn. But with city woods I doubt anyone would care. On public hiking trails, thats land for recreation use, and you are recreating.

 

[FriscoT06]

Your hiking stick just comes with batteries.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... Should I call the town and ask?

It sounds like you already decided that the feature you thought was a "cellar hole", was/is actually just something else after all.

But if the question still stood, then ... to answer your question: The above tactic might just have netted you a "safe" answer . From someone who perhaps would never have cared less (nor have even been there to have noticed). But .... when any city official is tasked with giving their "approval" for something, they will tend to give the "safe" answer. Perhaps they'll envision geeks with shovels, or someone slipping on a banana peel and suing, etc..

Besides, if it is technically dump land right-of-way, there was/is probably something about "no salvaging" at the dump. And they'd probably dream up that the rule applies to far-away-distant right-of-way land. When in fact, odds are, you'd have just been ignored. So I don't tend to ask silly questions. And no .... no one "gets arrested" for stuff like that gold-boy. JMHO.

 

[G.A.P.metal]

If it were me ...i be thinking that no suit and tie guys walking around out near the dump,and some of my crap is in that dump.
Ya i got into the site before they fill it in.
Mind the rats !
Gary

 

[coinman123]

It sounds like you already decided that the feature you thought was a "cellar hole", was/is actually just something else after all.

The lidar can at times be misleading. From the lidar it looked like a big round cellar hole, at little different being round vs square, but I assumed it was a cellar hole. I came there to see a three foot deep crater, probably from a tree and not a cellar hole. Oh well...

 

[hvacker]

I probably couldn't resist but then again I've got pirate blood in me.
Problem I see with a detector it would sound off every few inches. I remember a metal shop
that would make a dump run every couple weeks. At least a couple of tons. Mostly galvanized steel.
I remember the guy on Pawn Stars saying he was amazed at what people throw away.
I guess I would do a bit of recon and see what turns up.

 

[coinman123]

The crater was huge, probably three times with width of the road. I guessed it was some trees that fell and caused that one hundred years ago, but could be the old dump.

 

[hvacker]

coinman123 you don't say exactly where you are in NE but form just your description I thought of a "karst" landscape. Karst is where caves are underground and the roof of the cave collapses forming a sink hole. They are sometimes hard to see depending on how deep the roof fell.
Spelunkers will sometimes search for karst land formations to tell of a possible adventure.
I don't know New England well enough of caves there. I know some is all granite (NH).
If the land under the trees is limestone a cave is possible. That's because rain becomes acidic passing through soil and dissolves the limestone creating a cave over time. There are caves made by slightly different chemical processes for instance in a desert.

 

[coinman123]

coinman123 you don't say exactly where you are in NE but form just your description I thought of a "karst" landscape. Karst is where caves are underground and the roof of the cave collapses forming a sink hole. They are sometimes hard to see depending on how deep the roof fell.
Spelunkers will sometimes search for karst land formations to tell of a possible adventure.
I don't know New England well enough of caves there. I know some is all granite (NH).
If the land under the trees is limestone a cave is possible. That's because rain becomes acidic passing through soil and dissolves the limestone creating a cave over time. There are caves made by slightly different chemical processes for instance in a desert.

I'm from NH, Tons of granite, and some caves. I think you may be on to something, thinking about it, it seems a little too big for a tree caused occurrence. Cool info!

There is also known to be limestone in my region. Next time I am there, I will snap some photos.

 

[hvacker]

I'm from NH, Tons of granite, and some caves. I think you may be on to something, thinking about it, it seems a little too big for a tree caused occurrence. Cool info!

There is also known to be limestone in my region. Next time I am there, I will snap some photos.

My wife lived in NH and built a home there. I liked her story of having to dynamite the granite to dig a basement.
Where I had lived I was used to simply digging. We get back there time to time.

 

[coinman123]

My wife lived in NH and built a home there. I liked her story of having to dynamite the granite to dig a basement.
Where I had lived I was used to simply digging. We get back there time to time.

It really is the granite state. My septic tank is in a horrible location because of two 4 and 6 foot tall granite glacier rocks in my front yard, underneath the dirt is one big granite ledge. I know someone who built a home in MA that had the opposite problem, the dirt was too powdery and not stable enough, they needed to spend tons of money to re-enforce the ground. It must have been extremely hard to dig the cellar holes many of us find in the woods in NH, with only a shovel and no machinery. The basement of the house I just bought doesn't have any mortar or concrete anywhere, except for one part of one wall (where they patched some of the stones) and under the furnace. The granite around the house is so dense that even during a torrential downpour the basement remains bone dry. The foundation of the house is unsurprisingly also made out of granite.

 

[cgdigger]

It sounds like you already decided that the feature you thought was a "cellar hole", was/is actually just something else after all.

But if the question still stood, then ... to answer your question: The above tactic might just have netted you a "safe" answer . From someone who perhaps would never have cared less (nor have even been there to have noticed). But .... when any city official is tasked with giving their "approval" for something, they will tend to give the "safe" answer. Perhaps they'll envision geeks with shovels, or someone slipping on a banana peel and suing, etc..

Besides, if it is technically dump land right-of-way, there was/is probably something about "no salvaging" at the dump. And they'd probably dream up that the rule applies to far-away-distant right-of-way land. When in fact, odds are, you'd have just been ignored. So I don't tend to ask silly questions. And no .... no one "gets arrested" for stuff like that gold-boy. JMHO.

I dug an old town dump when I was a boy. Found some really great bottles. As an adult, I was interested in going back - but I also knew that town officials were not too happy with diggers on their property, even though it's unused land near the sewage treatment plant. I prepared the most persuasive letter possible, referenced my military service, promised to remove broken glass on the surface, leaving it better and safer than when I arrived, etc. Result? You guessed it - no go. So I agree that you're very unlikely to get a "yes" if you ask.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I dug an old town dump when I was a boy. Found some really great bottles. As an adult, I was interested in going back - but I also knew that town officials were not too happy with diggers on their property, even though it's unused land near the sewage treatment plant. I prepared the most persuasive letter possible, referenced my military service, promised to remove broken glass on the surface, leaving it better and safer than when I arrived, etc. Result? You guessed it - no go. So I agree that you're very unlikely to get a "yes" if you ask.

Good to hear from you cg-digger. What made you think they are "not happy with diggers" in current times ?

It's true that times are more litigious now, than they were in the 1960s & 1970s. Oh well :/ I still go by the "does anyone *really* care test of things. Rather than risking some far-away pencil-pusher's arbitrary "safe" answer.

 

[hvacker]

What I see happening especially with authorities it seems they ask themselves "How can this hurt me or return to bite me"? What if someone sues me because I said OK. I guess we could blame how easy it must be to squeeze through law school in that 49% are below average. That might explain why there are one lawyer for every 49 people in SF CA.
Tom in Ca probably has the best approach in claiming ignorance rather than expect approval from whoever might be in charge.

I left N Ill 30 years ago partly because everything was private land. I had to stay on a road or risk trespassing. Things might be changing in that way here too as I see abandoned homes now have chain link fence around many of them.

 

[4x4x4]

....In certain cases it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission....

 

[Tom_in_CA]

....In certain cases it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission....

Well, yes and no. The problem with that catchy saying is that it presumes something is wrong or illegal in the first place. In a lot of the places that come up on md'ing forums (where people wonder "Can I?") it's not really so clear cut that it's off-limits, in the first place.

It boils down to if-someone-gripes in a lot of cases. Not whether black & white laws or rules (ie.: a true rule that truly said "no md'ing"). Only grey area catch-all things that might apply , to certain lookie-lou gripers.