Monuments Move - Landowners Lose

[M.E.G.]

Monuments Move - Landowners Lose: A Surveyor's Dirty Little Secret - US~Observer

 

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[goldenIrishman]

Interesting read M.E.G. The sad thing is that I can see this kind of thing happening and a lot of people getting screwed over. It's a little known fact that the PLSS grid shown on a lot of maps is not exactly accurate in a lot of places. In some areas it's depicted anywhere from 10 to a couple of hundred feet from where it's supposed to be shown. Needless to say, this could cause some problems with claims in those areas since they have SLOWLY been correcting the data and claims have already been filed in the area based on the old data.

 

[delnorter]

Monuments Move - Landowners Lose: A Surveyor's Dirty Little Secret - US~Observer

The author of this article is just plain ignorant of the profession of land surveying, period. I actually believe he has made libelous statements and degrades his own profession by his own words.

MEG, you also should be ashamed of yourself for perpetuating this. You profess to be a learned and educated person in the matters of mining and land rights. Go talk to a surveyor and get the real story.

Mike

Monuments Move - Landowners Lose: A Surveyor's Dirty Little Secret - US~Observer

 

[Clay Diggins]

Shameful and full of misunderstanding and outright lies.

Will Goode is certainly not even trying to be an investigative reporter. He made his story up without even seeking the truth. He clearly knows nothing about surveying or land status matters. Why would you even direct us to this MEG?

There have been ill trained and even crooked surveyors over time but the law also takes that possibility into account. The idea that a modern surveyor would risk his profession, jail time and bankruptcy to illegally adjust a survey is not only ludicrous but also wouldn't change a single fact on the ground - as the article falsely wants you to believe.

We have several accomplished surveyors on this forum. Mike is one of them and he is well known to be as honest and hardworking as any other poster here. I think it's really bad form to challenge an entire profession and personally insult individuals who have done so much to bring honesty and accuracy to land descriptions. This article is the worst sort of shock "journalism" and doesn't deserve any consideration as a source of reliable or verifiable information. The author clearly doesn't have any knowledge of the subject.
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Goldenirishman. The PLSS grid is by definition accurate on the ground. The survey pins are the definition of where the sections are located - the survey pins provide the real life accuracy of any point in relation to other defined points on the ground. The map depictions of where those survey pins are located is what is inaccurate - not the actual location of the survey pins that define the grid.

When placer miners locate placer claims they often describe the corner stakes as being found in relation to the survey pins. This provides the "permanent landmark" needed to locate the claim in relation to as required by the Mining Acts. If there has been no survey accomplished there will be no public land survey pins marking the physical corners.

It's not uncommon for locators to try to define their claim boundaries by map coordinates or map boundaries. That does not provide the accuracy a real life survey pin does. You will notice that all mining claim locations are by law located in relation to actual physical features. Those allowed location description methods are aliquot part (sections and their parts defined by survey pins) or metes and bounds (compass direction and distance from a permanent physical landmark - like a survey pin). Map or GPS coordinates are not allowed to define the location of mining claims although they can be used in addition to a legal location.

So how does all this affect the mining claim locator? The final decision as to where a mining claim is located is determined by the physical stakes in the ground - not a map or location description. It does not matter if you described your claim on paper to be 60 foot from where it actually is staked the monuments and corner stakes define the claim. Inaccurately described claims can come back to haunt you but a survey doesn't and can't change where your physical claim or other property is located on the ground.

I deal with these issues a lot. It's not uncommon for private lands to be mislocated. I've seen several houses and mine works built outside the actual survey and monuments of the patented private land ownership. It'd darn hard to locate physical places accurately on a map. Physical perceptions on the ground don't always translate well to the straight lines and true distances we describe on a map. That's where surveyors come into play, surveyors are trained to make the real stuff on the ground match the descriptive stuff on a survey plat and visa versa. The mining laws recognize this difficulty and they address the role and qualifications of surveyors as well as providing for adjustments on the ground by the claim owner to meet the requirements of an accurate verified survey.

Heavy Pans

 

[delnorter]

Thanks for your kind words Barry. Now this 65 year old past surveyor has to head out to work. It's almost 5:00 AM.

Mike

 

[Oddjob]

To be honest this seemed more like slander and witch hunt with very dramatized speculation and few facts.

I my self am a land owner; my family has owned land and been in the cattle ranching business since the 1800's in 3 countries which has expanded since then to 27 countries.

In the 80's some Yankee purchased landed a 500 acre plot of land directly next to our 28,000 acre Junction ranch. He wanted to have it for a hunting lease. He had a survey done and then moved our fence 200 yards deeper in to our property giving him a 2,300 acre plot of land. One of our cowboys caught this on a fence check and was nice enough to not just shoot them and use the backhoe to bury the tards. He brought them to us and we used the legal system. 8 months later we owned that Yankee's 500 acre plot and settled for 200K as well. The system worked then.

In the late 90's the US government sent in a survey Team to our ranch just outside of Eagle Pass, it is our 70,000 acre ranch, insectry and production facility site. They said that new Federal Law says we have to surrender up to 900 yards of our land that borders Mexico so they can put in a road. This was very dangerous, we do not care who you are, what government you are with or how tough you think you are. That ranch had been in the family since 1934 and had seen all too many fire fights, so what was one more.

Still it went to court and the judge said that since we own 290,000 acres on the Mexican that joins this Texas ranch that the US Federal Gov would just have to go find another place to put in their roads. We showed that every time our family got in fire fights with drug traffickers that the Law Enforcement would wait two hours and then call to see if it is over before they responded.

The Feds then tried to shut down our privately owned Border crossings as well; but since they are between two properties owned by the same person and been in place before what ever year they could not do that either.

So the land system worked for us there again.

Then shortly after my parents passed away I was left with four ranches(ranch being over 10,000 acres) and several other properties. I got a letter one day in the mail in Germany from some oil company out or Dallas Texas; bet it took them a while to track me down. According to the letter they had been surveying land near my property in Three Rivers Texas, found the best site to drill but that the person who claimed to own that land actually moved their fence over basically.

They said that they could correct that for me if I would lease them just the Oil & Gas rights out for 25 years. They corrected it and I got a flat 490K annual contract.

I personally am not in the ranching business; I got as far away from that stuff as I could, joined the Army, retired and join Interpol. However my wife and I do own houses in several countries and ranches in 4 countries. Most of what we have we just lease out other than our holiday properties, but my family is still very big in the ranching and insectry business having right around 10,400 workers world wide.

That said I know property and when I hear such stories I call BS because this is some crap often said by little property owners or city slickers. Fact is the AG will 100% back you up in matter of land issues. Just from property taxes alone and taxes on what ever that property is putting out is enough to make the gov stand your ground for you, they are not taking the side of some chickenshit land developer or surveyor over a property that brings in over 50 million a year.

But this is nothing more than some blog, very little facts and tons of speculation. The author should write books because I am sure they would sell it if it was in a novel form sold in the fiction section.