Pub. 12 2017 Issue 1

21 Issue 1 2017 / UCLS Foresights www.ucls.org Proposed Direct Point Positioning Survey (DPPS) in Alaska BY STEVE DALE – NSPS DIRECTOR, UTAH O n November 14, 2016 the National Society of Profes- sional Surveyors (NSPS) issued a report about the proposed use of a new survey procedure known as Direct Point Positioning Survey (DPPS), which is proposed for surveys of certain lands to be conveyed to the State of Alaska under the Statehood Act. The report was prepared pursuant to a letter from Gerald Jennings, Chief of the Survey Section for the Division of Mining, Land & Water, Department of Natural Resources, State of Alaska (DNR) to the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) requesting an analysis and comment on this proposed procedure. The following is a summary of the NSPS report (go to the November 23, 2016 News and Views to view the full report). DPPS is a method of survey and documentation that will use direct sur- vey-derived geographic coordinates to report measurements on the official sur- vey record. BLM proposes to use DPPS methods to fix corners by geographic coor- dinates referenced to the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) geodetic datum. Physical monuments will be set at angle points on the perimeter of large tracts of state selected lands. Unmonumented corners are fixed in the official record by reporting each corner’s survey-derived geographic coordinates. The NSPS analysis and comment committee comprised the following professionals: • Dave Doyle, Geodesist (Maryland) • Timothy Kent, PLS (Washington) • John Kerr, PLS, CFedS (Alaska) • John Matonich, PLS (Michigan) • Glen Thurow, PLS, CFedS (New Mexico) • Karen Tilton, PLS, CFedS (Alaska) Also contributing were the following professionals: Curt Sumner, PLS, NSPS Executive Director Jon Warren, PLS, NSPS Past President NSPS requested participation and comment from the National Geodet- ic Survey (NGS) on the DPPS proposal. NGS determined that a formal but sep- arate response was more appropriate and that response will be forthcoming at a later date. The thrust of this requested analysis and comment surrounds the methodology and expense to define the remaining lands to be select- ed by the State of Alaska. The Federal Government has patented or interim conveyed approximately two-thirds of the state-selected lands. A portion of the remaining lands to be identified are those that are proposed to be surveyed by the DPPS method. The committee was provided numerous documents over the past year pertaining to all aspects of surveying the federal interest lands before patenting the same to the State of Alaska. These included historic docu- ments along with other technical papers and also comments from some private surveyors in Alaska. The committee examined the impacts of BLM’s DPPS proposal with regard to: • Past agreements between BLM and the State of Alaska regarding the survey of state selected lands; • Widely accepted principles of boundary law and the hierarchy of evidence for monuments; • Survey procedures of state lands after pat- ent using DPPS methods; • The technical and training requirements needed to properly use DPPS now and in the future. The DPPS method is a substantial departure from established federal sur- vey practice in Alaska, which may be unfamiliar to surveyors in other states. Therefore, some background discussion is necessary to understand the context of the DPPS discussion. Alaska Statehood and the MOU, History and Background While it is important to understand how the lands of other states were pat- ented and surveyed, it is essential to look at the process in place when Alaska was granted statehood. The Manual of In- structions for the Survey of Public Lands of the United States 1947 was in effect when Alaska was granted statehood. This Manual directed that survey monumenta- tion would be placed at intervals of every half mile around the exterior boundar- ies of townships. Given the size of the total acreage to be conveyed (102 million acres), this obviously created a tremen- dous federal obligation.