The BBC went on to identify the proposed resolution saying “Local Belgian authorities plan to contact the farmer to ask him to return the stone to its original location.” I certainly hope the professional surveying associations of Belgium and France step in to ensure the stone is restored to their best estimation of the original position. READ MORE.

Moving to the opposite side of the globe, a New Zealand man has been sued by his developer neighbor for NZ$315,000 because the house that his Contractor was nearly done building was ON the boundary line, rather than the 1 meter setback required. Apparently, the home design firm designed it that way, it was permitted, and surveyed to the permitted design.  Thankfully in this story, the Contractor’s Project Manager was quoted as saying "The first person I called was the surveyor. But he had actually marked the house in the right place according to the building consent." Think about how you/your practice/your staff would have handled this situation. If the NZ Surveyor KNEW or even suspected that the neighborhood required a 1m setback, the whole situation could have been resolved before the first stake was set. Sure – it may have caused a delay due to redesign or pursuing a variance for the setback incursion, but that would have been on the Design firm. This is a great opportunity to highlight how we as land surveyors can help our clients avoid these problems. READ MORE.

Another example of the importance of “where” popped up on the internet at Tampa’s Fox 13 News. Sadly, a young woman failed to consult a professional land surveyor or even a geography textbook prior to getting the latitude and longitude of Sedona, AZ tattooed on her left shoulder. The finished tattoo read 34° 52' 12" S, 111° 45' 36" W. Her comment was “I was so close!” No Miss, I’m afraid you were not close at all… Using the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) online INVERS3D tool, the output yielded is an ellipsoidal distance of 7,720,341.5631 meters, or nearly 4,800 miles. Yeah – “so close.” READ MORE.

Speaking of things geodetic, CLSA member John Tosto has completed preparing and submitting California’s final design parameters to NGS for the low distortion projections (LDPs) for Southern California (SCAL) and coastal Northern California (NCAL) for the State Plane Coordinate System of 2022 (SPCS2022). This took a lot of effort, expertise, input and guidance from many CLSA and California Spatial Reference Center (CSRC) members, and of course our allies at the NGS): Pacific Southwest Regional Advisor Dana Caccamise and SPCS2022 Project Manager Michael Dennis. The LDPs will supplement the traditional six State Plane Coordinate System Lambert Conic Conformal Projection zones, with which we are all familiar, as well as a single statewide Oblique Mercator Projection zone. And remember, with the adoption of SPCS2022, we will be working in the international foot, or of course meters.

The SPCS2022 “SCAL” Zone (Oblique Mercator Projection) includes at least portions of six counties (Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside Orange and San Bernardino) with a population over 19 million people. This SCAL Zone accommodates an estimated 90% of the population at or less than 20 ppm distortion. This regional LDP zone was unanimously supported by the County Surveyors of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

The SPCS2022 “NCAL” Zone (Oblique Mercator Projection) started out as a LDP for a 36 square mile county but grew to cover 350 miles of the California Coast. The SPCS2022 “NCAL” Zone encompasses 13 counties (San Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and San Benito) and over 8.5 million Californians. And once again, the NCAL LDP accommodates an estimated 90% of the population and all of the population centers with a projection with distortion less than 20ppm.

Thanks to all involved with the process that started for CLSA several years ago. As we move forward in implementing the SPCS2022, we licensed professionals will likely need to either learn new skills or refine what we already have, to truly master the use of the new reference frames and the geopotential datum. This means the educational and outreach opportunities that CLSA provides the entire geospatial community will increase in importance in the years ahead. Our partnerships and professional interactions with other organizations will be key to our shared success.

Lastly, I am asking each CLSA member to reach out to others who are not CLSA members and invite them to join or re-join us. I challenge every member to bring in at least one new member. Let’s achieve a goal of “2021 in 2021” – that is 2021 members in the year 2021.

Thank you for all your efforts. They are critical to the success of our organization, and the well-being of our profession.

Keep yourselves and your people safe.