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News and Updates
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| 2012 SDSPLS Annual Convention January 12, 13 and 14, 2012 Cedar Shore Resort, Chamberlain, SD More Information Coming Soon
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Message From the President In the past two weeks I was privileged to attend both the NDSPLS’s 33rd Annual Convention in Dickinson, ND and the MARLS 2012 Conference in Great Falls, MT. They were great venues to renew some old friendships and make new ones as well. I had the opportunity to see the new PLS registrants take their oath at the conference, witness the creation of the Montana Land Surveyor’s PAC, and meet land surveyor society representatives from both the US and Canada. I was fascinated to see how another state’s convention unfolds. Unless you have been living under the proverbial rock, you know about the recent oil boom in the western part of their state. Indeed, as I drove up under the full moon it seemed more like traversing Oklahoma than North Dakota. From just north of Ludlow, SD to the west limits of the city of Dickinson itself the lights of drill rigs and flares illuminated much of the trip. Much of the conference seemed on paper to be addressing the unique issues facing a state undergoing an oil boom for the first time. Surprisingly, those issues are not very different from the ones facing any other state, they just seem to be more sharply focused and acutely felt. Sessions included the drilling process and procedures, which were rather foreign to me. The others were very familiar ones to all of us; retracements in the PLSS, riparian boundaries, access to records held by counties, and unlicensed or substandard practice. The problems are the same, the pace is not. Dickinson is already unable to meet the current water demands by approved developments, and is expecting to double its population before the next census. This increase in activity was reflected in the record attendance at their conference. I also heard a rare statement from a state board of registration: they are “aggressively pursing” unfilled corner records and easement documents as well as investigations over 100 complaints of unlicensed practice. While the experiences in North Dakota seem exciting, they are not all that different from our own, just a little amplified. I saw in their tempest the same teacup we have right here. I look forward to a calmer level of progress this year as we deal with many of the same issues faced all over the country by state societies small and large. Education, access to that education, platting procedures, recording issues, enforcement, standards and discipline all need our attention, both as individual professionals and as a society. As a society, we have chosen to take steps to address many of these concerns before they become crises. Our own Standards Committee has begun the process of revising the GPS Guidelines. We will need volunteers to push that effort to fruition. Let the Board know if you are interested in helping. Our mentoring program is still trying to gain its ‘sea legs’. The trial session seemed to go well, and will be followed by another field activity later this year and hopefully some additional classroom based activities next fall. Each of you has some expertise that some new surveyor can only get from you. Will you share that knowledge with the next generation? Our scholarship opportunities are being broadened to meet the many different forms of education currently available to traditional resident programs and the non-traditional working student. Remember, scholarship is not just grant-in-aid, it is “the character, qualities, activity, or attainments of a scholar” (Merriam-Webster). As the scope and relevance of our profession develops over the next few years, we should stop for a moment and take a look at where we stand. Curt Smith of the NGS pointed out to me in Montana that South Dakota had one of the best organized vertical control programs in the country. But if you look carefully at the continuation of the program through monitoring the passive network with modern methods, namely the national CORS network, South Dakota is a hole in the fabric of the National Spatial Reference System (SNRS). Later this year we will see the latest realization of NAD83, incorporating the vast amount of data gathered through the CORS network. That adjustment (NAD83[(2011]) is ready to go, and the vertical component, the new Geoid 12, is being prepared right now for a planned release in April. Where does that leave South Dakota? The NGS believes that they are finished deploying further CORS, they only need 10-15 stations nationwide to continue their work. The plate boundary observatory network ends in Montana and Wyoming. The responsibility for densifying the national network now falls to the individual states. As professionals, our work will increasingly be tied (by regulation and convention) to the NSRS. Those ties will be of poor quality if we continue to rely solely on stations located in adjoining states. I think that the challenge facing this state and its surveying community, all of us, is to put away our buggy whips and do what we can to move forward with the technology and techniques of today, lest we be relegated to the dustbin. There is a Greek proverb, “A civilization flourishes when people plant trees under which they will never sit.” What trees will you be planting in the coming year? Mark Lippincott, LS SDSPLS 2012 President | ||
South Dakota
Society of
Professional Land
Surveyors
PO Box 8154
Rapid City, South Dakota 57709
605.348.1538