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| Subject: | RE: GISList: GPS data collection spawns court case! |
| Date: |
03/07/2002 05:37:10 PM |
| From: |
A'Hearn, William |
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Using a mapping grade GPS system to locate fire hydrants is akin to field
mapping the hydrants manually on large scale maps (1:720>).=20=20
I've done several projects using Trimble's Pro XR. Most projects consisted
of data collection, but the one project involved locating the property lines
between City and private properties for Fire Prevention. Fire Prevention is
responsible for brush clearance on City Property, and needed a better handle
on the locations of property lines. They got tired of clearing private
property. They were made very aware of the positional accuracy, and had no
problems with it. Corner points were uploaded from our GIS system. Our
head of Survey, reviewed the project and gave it a green light (He doesn't
have a problem with GPS data collection). It did help us locate several
residences that, after further investigation by our surveyors, had expanded
their back yards into City Property.=20
Mapping grade GPS is just another method to field collect data. It sure
beats carrying a stack of maps out into the field.
=20=20
-- Bill A'Hearn=20
=20
=D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8
=20
Bill A'Hearn, LSIT=20
GIS Analyst/Mapping Specialist
City of Glendale, CA
GIS/Mapping Services=20
wahearn@ci.glendale.ca.us
=20
=D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8 =D8
=20
"The good cartographer is both a scientist and an artist. He must have a
thorough knowledge of his subject and model, the Earth.... He must have the
ability to generalize intelligently and to make a right selection of the
features to show. These are represented by means of lines or colors: and the
effective use of lines or colors requires more than knowledge of the subject
- it requires artistic judgment." Erwin Josephus Raisz (1893-1968),=20
-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Letham [mailto:editor@geocomm.com\
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 1:13 PM
To: gislist@geocomm.com
Subject: GISList: GPS data collection spawns court case!
An interesting post on another list poses the question, should GIS people be
conducting land surveys?
Imagine, a local government has a field crew recording fire hydrant
locations with a GPS... the problem, the data collectors are not licensed
land surveyors. What are the issues here? I imagine that every local
government around will have different issues here to deal with, including
which department is responsible for getting that data: what are the accuracy
requirements: what happens to the data?
I'm sure this will be more common in the future as the use of GPS - coupled
with the end of selective availability - becomes more commonplace.
Any comments or thoughts regarding this... i'd be interested.
Gee.. I mapped some natural gas pipelines about 10 years ago and I'm no
licensed surveyor... do I need a lawyer!
cheers
Glenn
the original message is below
>>
In January, I was contacted by an investigator ... They had received
a complaint from a surveyor stating that I was surveying without a license.
I was using a Trimble Pathfinder Pro XR GPS unit to collect fire hydrant
locations and then plot them on a reference map.
Two investigators met with myself, our planning director, and our county
attorney. The investigators were unfamiliar with GPS and GIS and were
basically on a fact-finding mission. The investigation has progressed, and
today we met with the two investigators, an attorney from the Office for
Professional Discipline and a surveyor. The state's attorney told us at the
beginning of the meeting that after reviewing the facts in the case, they do
feel that we are guilty of practicing surveying without a license. She then
gave our county attorney a chance to state our case, which I thought he did
very well. We were informed that the board will make a decision within the
next week. The outcome of today's meeting basically boils down to two
issues:
1) Were we practicing surveying illegally in this particular instance
(collecting fire hydrant locations)? If we are found guilty,
we will be either asked to stop, or asked to stop and then referred to the
Attorney General's office for prosecution. This is where the involvement of
the Office of Professional Discipline ends.
2) Is any GIS or other person using a GPS unit to collect locational
information to create maps for public use guilty of land surveying? This is
obviously the larger issue, and the surveyors are ready to take us to task
on this one. Their Board is meeting next week and will discuss this issue.
I don't know if the surveyor present was representative of the entire board,
but he definitely believes that only licensed surveyors should be using GPS
to collect information such as we are (utilities, signs, etc) and implied
that his board is ready to introduce legislation in the State Assembly to
that effect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glenn Letham, Managing Editor
The GeoCommunit
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