2009 BLM Manual of Surveying Instructions

This past Wednesday night, The Arizona Professional Land Surveyors Association (APLS) Central Chapter held it's monthly meeting at the Fiesta Resort in Tempe, AZ. The main order of business at the meeting was to introduce the new BLM Manual of Surveying Instructions. The BLM Manual is the governing procedural document for the surveying of public lands in the western 30 states. In short, all land that is federally owned is divided using the guidelines laid out in this book. When you retrace any land boundary, you follow the history of that boundary back to its original owner and original division. In most cases, the original owner was the U.S.A. and this is how they divided the land. As you can imagine, the procedures for those divisions could be complex and the rules interpreted differently by each surveyor. We now have the latest version of The Manual, of which its successor was written in 1973. We have been using the 1973 Manual as our guide until now. The release of a new BLM Manual is a monumental event in the surveying profession of the United States.

Project Log: U.S. 191 Gila River Bridge

This past year we finally closed out the U.S. 191 project we have been a part of since year 2000. This is one of the more scenic projects that I have worked on. This portion of U.S. 191 Runs through the Black Hills and crosses the Gila River South of the town of Morenci in Greenlee County. ADOT's main objective on this project was to construct a new bridge and approaches over the Gila River Gorge.


Shortly after I began working for GMTS corp. in 2005, my old co-worker Billy and I were sent here to set the initial Right of Way stakes before they began to build. That is when I discovered that the reason they call this type of terrain "rolling hills" is not only their shape, but the softball shaped rocks on them that are always sending you rolling down its side.



It was this rolling and sliding that prompted GMTS to enroll us in a three day rope safety and rappelling course with Dale Stewart of the legendary Arizona Hiking Shack. After Dale's crash course in anchors, knots, edge kits, rappelling, and emergency prussic ascending, we were ready to tackle the final monumentation of U.S. 191. We had a blast rappelling on Camelback Mountain. Much thanks to Dale and GMTS for this opportunity.

This past summer we headed back out and set all of the final survey monuments and finally got to see the finished road and bridge. I love the design of the older bridges here in Arizona and they seem to be getting phased out one by one and replaced by mammoth concrete structures that, when you're driving, you can barely tell you're on a bridge. Here you can see the old and new side by side.



I've always enjoyed working on this project and will miss the beautiful days spent in the field. If you turn on Google Earth street view, and enter a picture on the bridge, you are on the old bridge and can see the construction of the new one.


Google Earth Lat/Long: 32°56'9.48"N,109°14'12.28"W