PLSO The Oregon Surveyor Sept/Oct 2020

Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon |  www.plso.org 19 Featured Article request. When I was working as a contract locator, there were several times when a picture or a map let me know exactly what needed to be marked. Sometimes the work area was funny-shaped and did not have an address. Other times, the paint had simply been washed away. Oregon’s liquid sunshine has that effect on markings sometimes. There is even a video on the website showing how to attach files to the ticket. Having the public utilities marked saves me time in the field. I don’t have to track down every signal when some of them are already marked out. When power and communications share a ground at the building, locating attempts can put a signal on every line coming in or out. While the ownership of some lines are very clear, others can be rather subjec- tive. Ownership changes hands at the meter whenever there is one, but not ev- ery system has meters. I have seen some campuses where the city marked out the fire lines to every hydrant. There are oth - ers where the fire lines were left for me to mark completely. Storm and sewer lines frequently change ownership at the edge of the utility right of way, but can also have some interesting easements cutting though work areas. Public locates are also important before driving rods for survey control, monu- ments, or property pins. I have responded to several emergency locates caused by a surveyor driving an iron rod through a gas line. The problemwas foundwhen the smell of gas was detected. The surveyor usually had no idea they had damaged anything! I have also seen a rod damage the protective sheath on a cable, which caused it to go bad over time. I understand that part of the reason that I am going out to a site is that there are things that are unknown or uncertain. With that being said, anything that I know about the site beforehand can be helpful. In simplest terms, when I know what you are looking for and why you need to find it, I am able to do my best work. Outdat- ed prints are better than no prints. Even being told what someone is trying to fig - ure out is better than just being told to mark whatever is in the ground. (This is still better than the excavator who calls me to figure out what they just hit with a backhoe: “What’s this and where’s the other half?”) The more I know, I can lo- cate faster and fewer things get missed. Locates revealed buried fuel tanks on this residential property. continues on page 20 T