Monument Preservation Outreach

The CLSA Central Valley Chapter oversees an ongoing effort to improve monument preservation efforts in the California Central Valley. This web page explains what monument preservation is, discusses why monument preservation is important to the land surveying profession and the public, and provides details on the Chapter's outreach efforts in this area.

What is monument preservation?

Land surveyors set physical monuments for two reasons. The first reason is to mark the location of property boundaries. These monuments are often call property corner monuments. The second reason is to help establish the horizontal and vertical location of the features above, below, or on the earth's surface they map. These monuments are known as survey control monuments or benchmarks. Groups of survey control monuments form survey control networks.

Once a monument is set it can be used again by the same surveyor or by other surveyors working in the area. It is common for a single survey monument to be visited by many different surveyors over the span of several decades. In some cases, a well preserved surveying monument may be visited by a land surveyor over 100 years after it was first set.

There are several factors that can contribute to the destruction or invalidation of a land surveying monument. The physical monument can be destroyed by construction or erosion. It can be moved by geologic forces that raise, sink, or shift the land in which the monument has been set. The monument can be buried or placed underneath buildings and other structures. The most common cause of monument destruction is construction.

Monument preservation is the effort to save surveying monuments from the forces that can destroy, damage, or move them. In particular, California state law requires that government agencies take steps to protect and preserve surveying monuments when they are completing construction projects or funding them.

Why is monument preservation important?

When an existing monument is destroyed the cost of surveys for private citizens, companies, governments, and other organizations increases. Valuable information is lost forever. Ultimately the costs of this lost information and of replacing these destroyed surveying monuments is carried by society as a whole. It is much more efficient, and economical to preserve surveying monuments once they are set.

Consider two (2) short examples that illustrate the damage that can be done when surveying monuments are destroyed.

Example 1

Joe decides to build a new gas station and mini-mart on his property. During the construction of the gas station Joe's contractor bulldozes the ground adjacent to the streets that are on each side of Joe's parcel. During this process the existing property corner monuments marking the boundaries of Joe's parcel are destroyed. Several years later, when Joe needs a boundary survey of the parcel to secure funding from a bank. (The property will be used as collateral for the loan.) Joe's survey is going to cost more because the land surveyor he hires will not be able to locate the monuments marking the boundary of Joe's parcel. To make matters even worse, any surveyors performed for the neighbors of Joe's parcel will also be more expensive, since the monuments destroyed during construction mark part of their parcel boundaries as well.

Example 2

The City of Three Oaks constructs a new water treatment plant and several miles of water pipeline to help provide clean water for their growing community. All of the engineering and construction plans for the new plant and pipeline are referenced to a survey control point set at the new treatment plant. This control point allows the surveyors and engineers to understand how the features of the new plant and pipeline relate to one another and to the existing topography of the site and route were they will be constructed. Several years later the survey control point at the treatment plant is removed during a small project to resurface the treatment plant parking lot. When it is time to install new facilities at the treatment plant the City will now be without an survey control point that helps locate the existing plant and pipeline. This survey control point will be critical to the engineers and surveyors that must make sure the new facilities at the plant match well with the existing facilities.

How is the CLSA Central Valley Chapter helping with monument preservation efforts?

The Chapter has appointed volunteer representatives to coordinate monument preservation efforts with local government agencies. This includes county governments and city governments in the California Central Valley. These governments have a responsibility under California law to ensure that survey monuments are preserved during their construction projects. The Chapter representatives work with their contacts in these governments to make sure that monument preservation is taken care of properly, and to support these governments with their monument preservation efforts whenever possible.

Below is a list of CLSA Central Valley Chapter members who have volunteered to assist with this monument preservation outreach and the government entity they are working with:

• Landon Blake - San Joaquin County
• Zachary Wong - City of Stockton
• Mike Quartaroli - City of Manteca, City of Lathrop, and City of Tracy
• Mike Turnrose - City of Escalon and City of Ripon
• Bill Koch - City of Lodi
• Rich Fultz - City of Turlock
• Tom DeLaMare - City of Ceres and City of Riverbank
• Larry Fontana - City of Hughson and City of Waterford
• Keith Spencer - City of Modesto and City of Patterson
• Crolie Lindsay - City of Newman

Documents Related To Monument Preservation

The list below contains documents that are related to monument preservation. These documents include letters from the Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors related to the monument preservation requirements.

• October 25, 2010 letter from David Hobbs to the State Board of Engineers and Land Surveyors.
• January 5, 2011 Response by the State Board of Engineers and Land Surveyors to the October 25, 2010 letter from David Hobbs.
• August 27, 2004 letter from California Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors to CLSA Orange County Chapter Professional Practices Committee.
• October 17, 1996 letter from California Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors to Mike Quartaroli.
• February 18, 2010 letter from California Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors to Kelsoe and Associates.
• 1990 Memorandum on tagging of monuments which first addresses obligation of a land surveyor to file a record of survey for an untagged, unreferenced monument.
• 1999 Memorandum on Record of Survey Filing Requirements and the Discovery of Unrecorded Monuments.