Colliding Monuments

APRIL 2015

COLLIDING MONUMENTS Product Review Angle Points Vision to Design Traverse PC A question of ethics Lake Wobegon Trail Completing the Lake Wobegon Trail Vision to Design » MATT PIKE

Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • April 2015 • Copyright 2015 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com Garrison Keillor (left, on bicycle) in Osakis, MN, at the dedication of the joining of the Lake Wobegon Regional Trail and the Central Lakes Trail, August 2007 PHOTO COURTESY OF STEARNS COUNTY PARKS

he urban areas in Stearns County, Minnesota, are like islands in a sea of corn, soybean and dairy farms. Through this bucolic setting Truns the Lake Wobegon Regional Trail (LWRT)—named after Garrison Keillor’s fictitious lake—a 62-mile (100-km), 10-foot (3-m) wide hike-and-bike pathway. It opened in 1998 and today stretches through central Minnesota, connecting in Osakis with the 55-mile (89-km) Central Lakes Trail. In addition to hiking and biking, one of the major usages of this trail is snowmobiling in the winter. As snowmobiling is not allowed within the St. Cloud metropolitan area, having a staging area in Rivers Edge Park (City of Waite Park) with ample public parking for trailering their snowmobiles is huge for metro snowmobilers. Map of the Lake Wobegon Regional Trail In 2012, a 3.2-mile (5.1-km) addition was MAP COURTESY OF STEARNS COUNTY PARKS commissioned to connect the LWRT to the municipal trail systems in the cities of county engineer; and the state’s Department the Sauk River to plan a bridge adjacent to Waite Park and St. Cloud, which connect to of Natural Resources, which provided the existing railroad bridge, and surveying the west bank of the Mississippi River. The some of the funding. WSB & Associates in areas covered by a heavy tree canopy. addition will also cross the Sauk River and was hired to do the engineering. Surveying utilize an active Burlington Northern Santa services for the extension began in July The Role of the County Fe (BNSF) rail corridor, private easements 2012 and the plan is to complete it by 2018. Surveyor and a public road right-of-way. Stearns County has approved it but still Stearns County Surveyor Scott Marlin, The LWRT extension project is a collabo- has to secure the land from BNSF. Aligning LS, who has a degree in geography and a ration of the county’s Parks Department, the trail required blending work done in minor in GIS, helped create the county’s which led the effort to build the trail and CAD and in GIS, bringing the data into a GIS and dealt for years with water, soils, has responsibility for maintaining it; the county-wide model and then into a state and planning issues before transitioning to offices of the county surveyor and of the model. Challenges included surveying in surveying. He assisted the county in setting

Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • April 2015 • Copyright 2015 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com up ties between its GIS, tax system and cadastre. His ability to integrate these systems was very valuable to the county, which encouraged him to become a surveyor and supported his investments in technology. Under Minnesota state law, county surveyors must be licensed land surveyors. Marlin has made full use of this legal authority to minimize the work he has to contract to private firms. His team sets up GNSS base stations, runs aerial photogra- phy and lidar flights, and does the ground control on each of the 200 targets needed to cover the county. “When the county builds a new building, we do the platting from the preliminary topo work to the preliminary plat, to the construction staking, to setting up the grid for the contractor, to laying out the parking lot,” he says. Marlin and his team have been an integral part of the planning and data acquisition to help implement the trail. They determined the trail’s preliminary

Stearns County, MN, surveyors deploying a remotely-controlled catamaran with an echo-sounder to map the bottom of the Sauk River PHOTO COURTESY OF THE STEARNS COUNTY SURVEYOR’S OFFICE

Trimble R8 on a small remotely controlled Returning to the office, they import the catamaran built by Frontier Precision, Inc. data into Trimble Business Center software The catamaran features a high-accuracy (TBC), which they use to remove outliers echo sounder and connectivity with any and check accuracy and alignment. Trimble GNSS receiver or robotic total “We’ve had to transition the way we station. “We can stand on the shoreline develop our CAD data into using methods while the boat is running in the water,” said that will readily transport into the GIS Marlin, “and we can see every shot. We world,” Marlin said. To help keep the data have cross sections in the river, so we’re entry more consistent, his team set up alignment; then, after consulting with the able to check periodically on the data that county engineer, they staked out parts of the it’s collecting.” alignment as a first draft for the consulting The most westerly portion of the trail engineers to use. The data they collected would be on the existing rail bed, which included topography and topographic fea- made data collection fairly easy. “We’re Plan information for the eastern end of the proposed extension of the Lake tures, utilities, wetland delineations, section able to use Minnesota’s CORS network and Wobegon Regional Trail. Information control, property corners and right-of-way VRS corrections, so we’re able to collect could be shared with GIS and design monuments—many of the features that the data very quickly,” Marlin said. However, software packages. consulting engineers need to design the trail. “as we move to the east we end up in an area where we have heavier canopy and the The Equipment They Used wetlands become a little more difficult to Throughout the project, Marlin’s team used get through.” When they are unable to see a Trimble® R8 GNSS receiver connected the sky they use their TSC3 controller in to Minnesota’s Continuously Operating combination with their Nikon total station. Reference Station (CORS) network, which Throughout the project, they coded each operates using Trimble VRS™ technology, a shot at the collection point for ease in Trimble TSC3® controller running Trimble processing in the office. Access™ software, and a Nikon total station. Since the project includes a bridge, it Processing the data required detailed mapping of the river Marlin’s team collects the data on the TSC3 bottom. For this task, the team deployed the controller and briefly reviews it in the field. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE STEARNS COUNTY SURVEYOR’S OFFICE

Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • April 2015 • Copyright 2015 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com View in Trimble Business Center depicts survey data for a section of the proposed extension of the Lake Wobegon Regional Trail. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE STEARNS COUNTY SURVEYOR’S OFFICE standardized code libraries within Trimble Access™ software. However, for this trail project they are collecting new features, In Case You Were Wondering… such as wetlands, so they are adding them Where the Heck is Lake Wobegon Anyway? to the Access code library. The team exported the data and sent it he Lake Wobegon Regional program includes a Keillor monologue to the engineering firm, which completed Trail doesn’t actually go to Lake about Lake Wobegon, almost always start- the design using MicroStation software. Wobegon. The lake and the town ing with “Well, it’s been a quiet week in The design information could be imported Tare quite, um, elusive. It’s like the old say- Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, back into TBC to check for alignment and ing, “You can’t get there from here.” But out there on the edge of the prairie.” accuracy, and then easily exported to the in another, very real sense, you can get Keillor then relates the latest news and field controllers for staking. there from just about anywhere—as more gossipy tidbits about Lake Wobegon and its than 4 million people around the world good but “mostly shy” citizens. The town The importance of integration do on most weekends by tuning in to “A and its surrounding farms are populated The ability to integrate different disciplines, Prairie Home Companion” (APHC) radio with people of primarily Scandinavian or technologies and models is the key to the show. Each listener has a special place German stock, most notably Norwegian success of this project. The combination in his or her heart for Lake Wobegon bachelor farmers. The people and their of hardware, software, technical skills and and its citizens—all daily doings ring true, collaboration between the parties is making created from the especially if you’ve the county and state tax dollars go further. ◾ fertile imagination of lived in a small rural Garrison Keillor. town in the upper On the first PHC Midwest. The mono- Matt Pike has been writing about geospatial technologies for more than a dozen years. broadcast in mid-1974, logue always ends with: Prior to becoming a freelance writer, he was Keillor introduced the “Well, that’s the news a research analyst for state and local govern- studio audience (12 from Lake Wobegon, ment. He lives in the Pacific Northwest. people) and the radio where all the women audience (number are strong, all the men unknown) to Lake are good looking, and Wobegon—”the little all the children are town that time forgot, above average.” and the decades cannot improve.” The town’s Back in 1974, Keillor thought the show storied location is somewhere in the middle would be something to do for a year or of Minnesota. The specific spot is the subject two, but it caught on and, in mid-2014, of much research, rumor and good-natured celebrated its 40th anniversary. A Prairie civic competition—numerous towns have Home Companion is now broadcast on claimed to be Lake Wobegon. But only more than 600 public radio stations and Keillor knows and he isn’t telling, although overseas in Europe and the Far East. he did say that the town of Holdingford, Based in St. Paul, Minnesota, the show which is on the LWRT, is “most Wobegonic.” hits the road for part of every year and has He has also said that Lake Wobegon is not been broadcast from almost all 50 states shown on maps because of the “incompe- and a number of foreign lands. By those tence of surveyors who mapped out the state measures, Lake Wobegon is everywhere. in the 19th century.” (Of course, they didn’t Minnesota is informally known as the have Trimble gear back then.) Land of 10,000 Lakes. Perhaps several Produced like an old-time radio variety zeroes should be added to that number, show with a live audience, each APHC just to include Lake Wobegon.