WEBVTT

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<v Christine>Good afternoon, everyone.</v>

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And thank you for joining the NGS Webinar Series.

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I am Christine Gallagher.

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I'm a communications specialist here

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at Silver Spring, Maryland working for NGS.

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And you're here to hear a presentation

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on "The Fate of the US Survey Foot After 2022:

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A Conversation with NGS."

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Michael Dennis is our presenter.

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Dr. Michael Dennis is a geodesist

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at NOAA National Geodetic Survey and manager of

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the State Plane Coordinate System of 2022 project.

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He's also a professional surveyor,

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an engineer with private sector experience,

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including ownership of a consulting and surveying firm.

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So without further ado, Michael, the floor is yours.

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<v Michael>Great, thanks everybody.</v>

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And thank you all for attending

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this webinar on short notice.

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Part of what happened is on April 12th,

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I gave a presentation very similar to this one

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to the National Society of Professional Surveyors,

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in their spring business meeting

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there in the DC area.

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And it was quite well-received.

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And one thing they wanted

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is to be able to get this message out more broadly.

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And so that's the real purpose of this webinar today.

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You know the topic,

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talking about the fate of the US survey foot.

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This is a topic that can raise

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strong emotions in people,

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but sit tight, and we'll go through everything in here.

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And I think you'll be interested in what you see and learn

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during this presentation.

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While we were getting started there,

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Christine already introduced me.

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You know that I'm a geodesist.

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I'm also the State Plane Coordinate System of 2022

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project manager.

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But I am, in addition, a land surveyor

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registered in Arizona and also a professional engineer.

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So I've been in that part of the world.

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In fact, I did that before I ever came to NGS.

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Starting with this, first of all,

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you've gotta realize a topic like this,

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there's gonna be a lot of foot jokes,

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but we are gonna try to put our best foot forward.

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And in fact, I have this kind of fun image on there.

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Thanks to Harry Nelson from Maine DOT

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for turning me onto this image.

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It's 16 men after they leave church,

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someplace in England,

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using their left feet from toe to heel

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to measure out a rood or now we call it a rod

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or a perch or a pole.

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But they're setting out the basis

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of land measurement for that community.

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So it was kind of a fun thing.

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And so you see it's quite old,

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it's from, actually from the 1500s, early 1500s.

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So this is a later edition of the book,

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and I thought it would just be fun,

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but actually there's an important lesson in here,

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and it's very germane to what we're talking about.

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What they are doing,

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and this was the idea at the time,

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is they are establishing a standard of measurement

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specifically for their community.

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Not for the nation, not for the state, the county,

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maybe not even for an entire town, but for their community.

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And that's what the surveyor would use to measure land.

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You might imagine that could create problems,

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and we'll get to that in a bit.

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In fact, it did create problems.

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So here's the plan for today's webinar.

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When I talk about the US survey foot,

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it's gonna be more than just about surveying.

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First, I wanna give you the big picture part of it.

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We'll do that initially.

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We'll go into something that you might not be aware of it,

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the interplay between weights, measures and the law,

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and then probably the most fun part of the webinar

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is we go through the history of all this

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and how we got to where we are today,

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which includes the next item on here,

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the role of technology in that,

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getting to where we are today.

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And we'll look at some choices that we have for the future

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and NGS proposal for the future

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on what to do about the US survey foot.

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Then we'll go over some reasons why you might want to change

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and maybe some reasons why you might not.

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And lastly, I'll close out on the idea

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of taking a stand for standards.

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And I hope by then you'll be persuaded

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how important that is.

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And as we go along,

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I hope you give me the liberty

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to take a few digressions now and then.

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I can't help but do that.

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And so I will. In fact, I'll do it right now.

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There's words in red on this slide, like surveying.

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I love surveying.

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That's how I got into this field in the first place.

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Like I said, I am a boundary surveyor.

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I own a small boundary surveying firm in Arizona.

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So I did quite a bit of that sort of work.

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I'm sensitive to it.

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What's the big deal with boundary surveying?

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What's the interface

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between interface with property owners and the law?

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The law is a huge part of surveying.

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It's not just about measurements.

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And of course, history is a big part of the law,

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and any surveyors in the audience,

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I'm sure they share this with me,

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the thrill of taking those old original notes

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that are often more than a century old

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and going out in the field

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and maybe being one of the few people

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that have walked that line since the original surveys,

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But surveying is also about technology, right?

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It has evolved tremendously in the last few decades

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with new technology,

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Now these things I have in boxes right now on the screen

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talking about surveying and the law,

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the history of technology.

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Those are what makes surveying so great.

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It's such a fantastic profession.

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I'm surprised everybody doesn't want to be a surveyor,

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but there's more things, standards.

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We're gonna talk a lot about standards.

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In fact, that's what makes the technology work,

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but not just the technology, but also the law.

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And you'll see that.

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And there's change.

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There has been a lot of change,

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and there's going to be more, right?

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We're going to new so-called datums in 2022

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and perhaps make some other changes along with that,

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which is the topic of this webinar.

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And last but not least is the future.

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This is about the future.

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We'll look at the past as guideposts to the future,

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but it's about the future.

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Now, when I gave that this presentation to NSPS

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on April 12th, there was a group there

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called The Young Surveyors Network.

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And I made a real point that this is about them.

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This is what they will inherit as they go forward.

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And it turns out they were very receptive to that idea.

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I hope that continues to be the case.

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Hopefully everyone's hearing me okay.

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Send a note to the organizers or whomever if not.

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Based on that initial poll that we had for the webinar,

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it sounds like everybody's familiar with the problem.

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So real briefly, here's the problem.

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Two versions of the same unit in current use today

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in the United States, a new foot and an old foot.

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The new foot is called international.

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And the old is called US survey.

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They're almost identical.

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For most people, there is no difference

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that they could even detect.

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It's two parts per million,

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and that might not mean anything,

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but that is 0.01 or 100th of a foot per mile,

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a little more than a 10th of an inch per mile.

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Very, very small.

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Nonetheless, it is a real problem with real costs.

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What's in a name?

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So with apologies to Shakespeare here,

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that what you call a foot

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by any other word would smell as sweet.

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Well, maybe not sweet,

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That's not the right way word for feet,

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but you get the idea.

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So one thing that seems to come up,

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and it's kind of surprising, but maybe not.

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We're all just human, after all.

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Is surveyors seem to like the name US survey foot.

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It sounds patriotic, very American.

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Then there's the word international foot,

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which sounds kind of New World Order, UN-sanctioned,

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maybe with a faint whiff of socialism.

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I'm not sure.

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I hope that's not the real barrier here

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to moving beyond the US survey foot, but perhaps it is.

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But who's using the US survey foot?

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Well, surveyors they're using it.

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Really only surveyors are,

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but it affects everyone because what surveyors create

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gets used by all of society,

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and a typical, say, engineering project,

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the first people on the job

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and the last people that leave it are surveyors.

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So we're part of the process of this all the time,

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which is why the US survey foot has made its way

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into all sorts of different places,

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even though it's not even officially accepted in all states.

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So what should we do?

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The idea is to have a conversation first.

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And that's what this is all about.

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Now, webinars, obviously not a good way

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to have a conversation,

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but we do want to know what you think.

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And you'll see opportunities for that

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at the end of the webinar as well.

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And again that's part of it.

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First to lay the groundwork,

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get on the same basic understanding about the situation.

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So I'm gonna spend a lot of this presentation

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just giving them facts,

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and I'll sprinkle in some opinions here and there,

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of course, because I can't help myself

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but mostly facts so that we all speak the same language

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when we discuss what to do in the future.

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So the big picture, right?

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Let's back away from just surveying.

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When you go through old documents,

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going all the way back,

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all the way back to the beginning of this country,

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you see the words science and industry,

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science and industry.

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It's all about commerce.

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It's about money, right?

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It's about business.

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It's not really so much about technology

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and being fussy about unit.

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It's about making business work.

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Standards for that are essential.

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We would be lost without them.

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And there's a long history of change as well.

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And it's not for its own sake.

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It's the idea is to make things better.

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We don't just change for change's sake.

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And it's something that's essential to progress as well.

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Here's the part that might be news to some of you,

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the role of the law and standards.

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And when I say standards,

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I'm specifically talking about weights and measures.

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Now we take all that for granted

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'cause nowadays things just work for the most part.

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Except for the one topic we're talking about,

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and there's many years behind what we have today.

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This didn't just start out of the blue.

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It took a long time to fix.

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The last thing, though,

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is legally binding weights and measures,

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and it's critical to the functioning of society.

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There's no way around it.

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So who is responsible for standards today

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in the United States?

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Well, it's the

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National Institute of Standards and Technology.

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That's NIST. That's part of the Department of Commerce.

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It turns out that NOAA is also part

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of the Department of Commerce.

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They're both bureaus in the Department of Commerce,

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and NGS is a program office within NOAA.

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So there's sort of the connection, and you say,

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okay, I see this, I see NIST, I see NOAA,

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but where's the connection?

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Where's the connection?

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Well there was a connection.

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Before 1901, which was the year that NIST was founded,

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it was the US Coast and Geodetic Survey,

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the predecessor of NGS,

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that was in charge of standards for waste and measure.

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We worked under the authority

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of the Department of the Treasury.

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Department of Commerce wasn't created until 1903.

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So it was the Department of Treasury.

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We worked through them and under their authority

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and the superintendent,

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which would be like the director today of NGS,

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the superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey

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was also the superintendent

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of the Office of Standard Weights and Measures

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up until 1901.

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So that's the history.

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But ultimately the authority is Congress.

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All right? It's Congress.

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Per the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 5,

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"The Congress shall have power to coin money

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and fix the standards of weights and measures."

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Do note that clause five,

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that money and weights and measures,

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are in the same sentence.

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These are inextricably linked.

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But why? Why did they do this?

00:12:10.370 --> 00:12:13.767
Well, they did it to avoid the toothbrush problem, right?

00:12:13.767 --> 00:12:16.423
You guys know what the toothbrush problem is. Maybe.

00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:20.240
Here's the trouble with standards.

00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:22.180
Standards are like toothbrushes.

00:12:22.180 --> 00:12:24.021
Everyone agrees they are desirable,

00:12:24.021 --> 00:12:27.330
but nobody wants to use someone else's.

00:12:27.330 --> 00:12:28.623
That's the real problem.

00:12:29.550 --> 00:12:31.850
Without uniformity, standards are useless.

00:12:31.850 --> 00:12:35.360
So that first slide, the people from the church

00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:37.420
who were measuring a rood for their community

00:12:37.420 --> 00:12:39.363
using their actual feet.

00:12:41.420 --> 00:12:42.270
That doesn't work.

00:12:42.270 --> 00:12:47.257
And it was a huge problem for the early United States.

00:12:47.257 --> 00:12:48.357
And we'll get to that.

00:12:52.590 --> 00:12:53.853
I'm gonna tell you a story now.

00:12:53.853 --> 00:12:56.330
This is an epic tale with an impressive cast.

00:12:56.330 --> 00:12:58.901
I put a few people up here you might recognize,

00:12:58.901 --> 00:13:02.573
George Washington, first president of United States,

00:13:02.573 --> 00:13:06.040
Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States,

00:13:06.040 --> 00:13:10.070
and John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States.

00:13:10.070 --> 00:13:13.070
They're all presidents so you should know them.

00:13:13.070 --> 00:13:14.550
Others that you might not know as well.

00:13:14.550 --> 00:13:16.900
Ferdinand Hassler, the first superintendent

00:13:16.900 --> 00:13:19.220
of the Coast and Geodetic Survey

00:13:19.220 --> 00:13:21.345
and Thomas Mendenhall,

00:13:21.345 --> 00:13:25.410
also a superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey.

00:13:25.410 --> 00:13:26.790
So you may not have heard of before,

00:13:26.790 --> 00:13:28.420
but you're about to hear

00:13:28.420 --> 00:13:31.140
something really significant about him.

00:13:31.140 --> 00:13:34.150
One cool thing, and surveyors love this, right?

00:13:34.150 --> 00:13:36.690
These guys are surveyors, right?

00:13:36.690 --> 00:13:39.400
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were surveyors.

00:13:39.400 --> 00:13:42.130
Obviously Ferdinand Hassler and Thomas Mendenhall were.

00:13:42.130 --> 00:13:45.710
They were superintendents of the Coast and Geodetic Survey.

00:13:45.710 --> 00:13:47.360
Now John Quincy Adams, I don't want to leave them out.

00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:50.063
I believe he was the only president

00:13:50.063 --> 00:13:52.820
that had a pet alligator in the White House.

00:13:52.820 --> 00:13:54.354
So he is unique in his own way,

00:13:54.354 --> 00:13:57.037
but he played a big role in developing standards

00:13:57.037 --> 00:13:59.070
in the United States as well.

00:13:59.070 --> 00:14:00.740
And one other character.

00:14:00.740 --> 00:14:01.900
We've already met this character,

00:14:01.900 --> 00:14:03.960
and we'll meet this character again,

00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:06.103
and that is the US Constitution itself.

00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:11.000
So going through a timeline,

00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:12.550
when did this all start in the United States?

00:14:12.550 --> 00:14:14.810
With the Articles of Confederation.

00:14:14.810 --> 00:14:16.290
That gave Congress the authority

00:14:16.290 --> 00:14:19.160
for establishing weights and standards.

00:14:19.160 --> 00:14:20.860
Then the US Constitution itself.

00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:24.420
You saw already, Article I, Section 8, Clause 5,

00:14:24.420 --> 00:14:26.883
Congress to "fix standards of weights and measures."

00:14:26.883 --> 00:14:30.308
George Washington in his first message to the Congress

00:14:30.308 --> 00:14:35.140
in 1790 and later in 1790 and again in 1791,

00:14:35.140 --> 00:14:36.640
he brought up the importance,

00:14:36.640 --> 00:14:40.060
the vital importance of attending to standards

00:14:40.060 --> 00:14:41.470
of weights and measures.

00:14:41.470 --> 00:14:44.310
Same year, Jefferson wrote a report

00:14:45.210 --> 00:14:46.750
at the request of Congress

00:14:46.750 --> 00:14:48.890
on standardizing weights and measures.

00:14:48.890 --> 00:14:50.510
And he actually proposed a decimal system,

00:14:50.510 --> 00:14:52.612
which they were all set to adopt,

00:14:52.612 --> 00:14:54.523
as crazy as that may sound.

00:14:55.610 --> 00:14:59.230
In 1821 Adams John Quincy Adams

00:15:01.260 --> 00:15:03.443
submitted, again, at the request of Congress

00:15:03.443 --> 00:15:05.793
a substantial report on weights and measures.

00:15:06.870 --> 00:15:08.837
A little quote from him here.

00:15:08.837 --> 00:15:10.270
"Weights and measures may be ranked

00:15:10.270 --> 00:15:11.850
among the necessaries of life

00:15:11.850 --> 00:15:15.100
to every individual of human society."

00:15:15.100 --> 00:15:17.170
It's hard to overstate how important this was

00:15:17.170 --> 00:15:20.558
because the situation at this time

00:15:20.558 --> 00:15:23.895
was like that first line.

00:15:23.895 --> 00:15:26.810
Different colonies had different standards for everything,

00:15:26.810 --> 00:15:29.560
Weights, lengths, volumes, the whole deal,

00:15:29.560 --> 00:15:32.320
Sometimes different ones within single towns.

00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:35.173
It was not conducive to commerce.

00:15:37.570 --> 00:15:39.110
So along comes Ferdinand Hassler.

00:15:39.110 --> 00:15:40.860
Remember, he's not just the superintendent

00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:41.960
of the Coast and Geodetic Survey,

00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:43.220
but also the superintendent

00:15:43.220 --> 00:15:46.433
of the Office of Standard Weights and Measures.

00:15:47.290 --> 00:15:48.430
At the behest of Congress,

00:15:48.430 --> 00:15:51.920
he goes to Europe, to England,

00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:54.010
and gets something called the Troughton scale,

00:15:54.010 --> 00:15:55.970
which is quote unquote exact copy

00:15:55.970 --> 00:15:57.370
of a British Imperial yard,

00:15:57.370 --> 00:15:59.510
had an awkward time during the War of 1812,

00:15:59.510 --> 00:16:00.750
got detained for a little bit,

00:16:00.750 --> 00:16:02.433
brought it to the US in 1815.

00:16:05.025 --> 00:16:07.590
So that was a start, the Troughton scale.

00:16:07.590 --> 00:16:09.240
Congress, actually, the secretary of the treasury,

00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:10.940
directed him to resolve these issues

00:16:10.940 --> 00:16:12.300
of weights and measures.

00:16:12.300 --> 00:16:14.830
Ferdinand worked on that diligently,

00:16:14.830 --> 00:16:16.170
submitted a report to Congress,

00:16:16.170 --> 00:16:18.690
which after not very long, after four years,

00:16:18.690 --> 00:16:21.770
that's actually Congress's first official action

00:16:21.770 --> 00:16:25.530
on standards, a joint resolution for uniform standards.

00:16:25.530 --> 00:16:28.730
That was the first thing they had actually done,

00:16:28.730 --> 00:16:32.063
concrete, in terms of addressing the problem.

00:16:33.190 --> 00:16:35.530
But something terrible happened

00:16:35.530 --> 00:16:39.310
between 1832 and 1836 in England.

00:16:39.310 --> 00:16:40.897
House of Parliament burned down

00:16:40.897 --> 00:16:44.663
and Imperial Yard was damaged beyond repair.

00:16:46.180 --> 00:16:48.662
That was the basis for our system of measurement.

00:16:48.662 --> 00:16:50.262
It took them a while, but they made a new one.

00:16:50.262 --> 00:16:54.120
And then they made a two copies and sent them to the US.

00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:56.450
One of them was called Bronze Yard No. 11,

00:16:56.450 --> 00:16:58.776
which essentially became the official US standard.

00:16:58.776 --> 00:17:01.130
And naturally, what do you do when this thing shows up?

00:17:01.130 --> 00:17:02.790
You compare it to the one you already have,

00:17:02.790 --> 00:17:03.869
the Troughton scale.

00:17:03.869 --> 00:17:05.540
Well, they weren't the same.

00:17:05.540 --> 00:17:06.373
This is actually impressive.

00:17:06.373 --> 00:17:08.750
They were this good at measuring back then.

00:17:08.750 --> 00:17:13.350
It was 0.02 millimeters shorter than the Troughton scale.

00:17:13.350 --> 00:17:15.040
That's 24 parts per million.

00:17:15.040 --> 00:17:16.940
So there was that problem.

00:17:16.940 --> 00:17:18.000
There was always this problem

00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:20.993
with comparing these physical bars with one another,

00:17:21.880 --> 00:17:23.450
how they did the measurements.

00:17:23.450 --> 00:17:24.900
It's actually quite involved.

00:17:26.510 --> 00:17:29.550
As you can see, though, we're connected to the empire here,

00:17:29.550 --> 00:17:31.550
the British empire, using the Imperial Yard

00:17:31.550 --> 00:17:32.500
as our basis our measure.

00:17:32.500 --> 00:17:36.367
Even though we had independence since the revolution,

00:17:36.367 --> 00:17:38.710
not in terms of measurement.

00:17:38.710 --> 00:17:39.960
It goes on.

00:17:39.960 --> 00:17:41.620
And this other thing was going on in the world

00:17:41.620 --> 00:17:42.690
in the enlightened world.

00:17:42.690 --> 00:17:44.470
That's the development of the metric system,

00:17:44.470 --> 00:17:48.600
and in 1866 Congress legalized the metric system

00:17:48.600 --> 00:17:52.660
for commerce in the United States, a pretty big deal.

00:17:52.660 --> 00:17:57.460
We also signed Treaty of the Meter in 1875,

00:17:57.460 --> 00:17:59.373
ratified it a few years later.

00:18:01.050 --> 00:18:03.221
Then Bronze Yard No. 11 took a trip to England.

00:18:03.221 --> 00:18:04.860
It got there, and they compared it

00:18:04.860 --> 00:18:06.510
to the official British Imperial yard.

00:18:06.510 --> 00:18:08.343
And it just wasn't quite the same.

00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:13.350
It took another trip to England in 1888,

00:18:13.350 --> 00:18:16.260
and it was different again by a different amount.

00:18:16.260 --> 00:18:17.913
So things are getting kinda messy.

00:18:20.360 --> 00:18:22.280
But then during that same time,

00:18:22.280 --> 00:18:25.297
other groups were working on this metric stuff,

00:18:25.297 --> 00:18:29.040
and they came up with the Standard Meters and meter bars

00:18:29.040 --> 00:18:33.920
Numbers 21 and 27 were shipped to United States from France.

00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:35.620
We got them in 1890.

00:18:35.620 --> 00:18:40.540
They are made out of 90% platinum, 10% iridium.

00:18:40.540 --> 00:18:43.590
It was state of the art metrology at the time.

00:18:43.590 --> 00:18:44.860
State-of-the-art.

00:18:44.860 --> 00:18:45.693
So we had this thing.

00:18:45.693 --> 00:18:50.160
We had this meter, and the meter had been legalized already,

00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:52.063
but we had this Bronze Yard,

00:18:53.140 --> 00:18:54.890
and there was already problems with different states

00:18:54.890 --> 00:18:56.634
having their own copies of the Bronze Yard

00:18:56.634 --> 00:18:59.120
and none of them being quite the same.

00:18:59.120 --> 00:19:01.030
It was chaos.

00:19:01.030 --> 00:19:03.380
This is exactly what they didn't want.

00:19:03.380 --> 00:19:04.797
They wanted all this sorted out.

00:19:04.797 --> 00:19:08.950
And here it is over 100 years

00:19:08.950 --> 00:19:11.240
since the founding of the nation, of the United States,

00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:12.670
and here we have this problem.

00:19:12.670 --> 00:19:13.563
What do we do?

00:19:16.420 --> 00:19:20.500
Out of chaos, order. Specifically The Mendenhall Order.

00:19:20.500 --> 00:19:22.110
Thomas Mendenhall, superintendent

00:19:22.110 --> 00:19:24.143
of Coast and Geodetic Survey and Weights and Measures

00:19:24.143 --> 00:19:26.727
from 1889 to 1894,

00:19:26.727 --> 00:19:28.580
he had a choice, right,

00:19:28.580 --> 00:19:33.580
between the meter and the Bronze Yard No. 11.

00:19:36.517 --> 00:19:38.633
But he embraced the meter,

00:19:39.850 --> 00:19:41.980
abandoned the British Imperial Yard,

00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.536
finally got liberated from Britain,

00:19:44.536 --> 00:19:47.787
declared the foot to be defined by the meter,

00:19:47.787 --> 00:19:51.192
not by this stick over here, okay.

00:19:51.192 --> 00:19:55.900
One foot equals 1,200 divided by 3,937 meter.

00:19:55.900 --> 00:19:59.280
A lot of you will recognize that conversion.

00:19:59.280 --> 00:20:02.282
He also issued part of his annual reports,

00:20:02.282 --> 00:20:05.060
including tables of conversions.

00:20:05.060 --> 00:20:08.270
And one of them of interest to surveyors is Gunter's chain,

00:20:08.270 --> 00:20:10.503
used for land measurement.

00:20:11.699 --> 00:20:14.960
It had a conversion of 20.1168 meter.

00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.823
So at this point, 1893, the US officially became metric.

00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:22.280
We are metric.

00:20:22.280 --> 00:20:23.360
We have been since then.

00:20:23.360 --> 00:20:25.610
Please understand that.

00:20:25.610 --> 00:20:28.910
The foot is subservient to the meter.

00:20:28.910 --> 00:20:30.363
That's just the way it is.

00:20:32.070 --> 00:20:34.170
I want you to notice something here, what this says.

00:20:34.170 --> 00:20:36.100
It says, "The Mendenhall Order."

00:20:36.100 --> 00:20:38.380
It doesn't say The Mendenhall suggestion.

00:20:38.380 --> 00:20:40.580
It doesn't say the Mendenhall request.

00:20:40.580 --> 00:20:43.883
This was The Mendenhall Order, and it was a done deal.

00:20:44.730 --> 00:20:48.030
Now, interesting little tidbit here.

00:20:48.030 --> 00:20:53.030
20.1168 meter is exactly 66 international feet,

00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:58.559
but it's only 65.999868 survey feet.

00:20:58.910 --> 00:21:02.203
Hmm. Now that's just a coincidence, really.

00:21:02.203 --> 00:21:04.930
Just a happy coincidence of rounding,

00:21:04.930 --> 00:21:06.690
but it reveals something that's important.

00:21:06.690 --> 00:21:07.827
So I'm gonna take a little bit of a digression now,

00:21:07.827 --> 00:21:10.400
and let's talk about the Gunter's chain

00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:14.590
and the idea of retracing surveys.

00:21:14.590 --> 00:21:16.030
First of all, the Gunter's chain has been around

00:21:16.030 --> 00:21:17.480
for a long time.

00:21:17.480 --> 00:21:20.553
And then in 1620, those of you who are aware of it,

00:21:20.553 --> 00:21:25.060
it's 66 feet long, 100 links usually.

00:21:25.060 --> 00:21:26.730
And when people use it for measurement,

00:21:26.730 --> 00:21:31.730
they usually give it and change each link

00:21:32.560 --> 00:21:34.111
and usually whole links.

00:21:34.111 --> 00:21:36.730
Now, there's a belief out there

00:21:36.730 --> 00:21:40.677
that Gunter's chain is chained to the US survey foot,

00:21:40.677 --> 00:21:42.710
and that simply not true.

00:21:42.710 --> 00:21:45.150
For one thing, it existed before the US survey foot.

00:21:45.150 --> 00:21:47.680
The foot varied in length by much more

00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:51.192
than two parts per million before 1893 anyway.

00:21:51.192 --> 00:21:53.129
It's all over the place.

00:21:53.129 --> 00:21:56.280
In addition, there's a picture of one here.

00:21:56.280 --> 00:22:00.560
There's no doubt that this device is not manufactured

00:22:00.560 --> 00:22:02.323
to two parts per million accuracy.

00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:06.740
That's 0.0016 inch.

00:22:06.740 --> 00:22:09.040
That's two thousandths of a link per chain

00:22:09.040 --> 00:22:12.090
or 0.016 link per mile.

00:22:12.090 --> 00:22:13.550
It just wasn't used that way.

00:22:13.550 --> 00:22:15.313
And even if it was built,

00:22:16.740 --> 00:22:18.590
people didn't survey that accurately back then.

00:22:18.590 --> 00:22:21.820
They don't survey that accurately now.

00:22:21.820 --> 00:22:23.733
Two parts per million? I don't think so.

00:22:23.733 --> 00:22:25.800
One hundredth of a foot per mile?

00:22:25.800 --> 00:22:27.320
That's not what's occurring.

00:22:27.320 --> 00:22:29.623
So this is not the problem.

00:22:32.310 --> 00:22:34.400
Now let's move to a new century.

00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:36.390
In 1901, the National Bureau of Standards created,

00:22:36.390 --> 00:22:39.110
which has become NIST since then.

00:22:39.110 --> 00:22:40.630
And a new foot came along.

00:22:40.630 --> 00:22:44.190
One foot equals exactly 0.3048 meter.

00:22:44.190 --> 00:22:47.430
Actually get it in terms of yards, 0.9144 yards.

00:22:47.430 --> 00:22:48.380
And like a lot of things,

00:22:48.380 --> 00:22:50.830
this just didn't get adopted instantaneously.

00:22:50.830 --> 00:22:52.230
It took time.

00:22:52.230 --> 00:22:55.120
It took decades.

00:22:55.120 --> 00:22:58.493
Well, one of the earliest adopters of this new foot,

00:22:59.400 --> 00:23:01.200
which has come to be called the international foot,

00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:03.040
was the predecessor of ANSI,

00:23:03.040 --> 00:23:06.709
the American National Standards Institute in 1933.

00:23:06.709 --> 00:23:11.090
The predecessor of NASA adopted it in 1952.

00:23:12.230 --> 00:23:14.530
So they're interested in big distances too,

00:23:14.530 --> 00:23:17.400
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

00:23:17.400 --> 00:23:19.840
So they did that in 1952.

00:23:19.840 --> 00:23:21.060
Also in that same time,

00:23:21.060 --> 00:23:22.087
everything was kind of going metric.

00:23:22.087 --> 00:23:24.960
The international nautical mile was defined

00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:28.883
as exactly equivalent to an integer value in meters.

00:23:30.550 --> 00:23:33.900
And finally, the National Bureau of Standards

00:23:33.900 --> 00:23:36.340
officially adopted the new foot

00:23:36.340 --> 00:23:38.150
for everything in the United States,

00:23:38.150 --> 00:23:42.053
just period, across the board, with one little exception.

00:23:43.130 --> 00:23:45.269
This is the one you might know about.

00:23:45.269 --> 00:23:47.040
I'm calling this "Kicking the Can."

00:23:47.040 --> 00:23:50.441
in 1959, there was a memo,

00:23:50.441 --> 00:23:55.441
and there's a URL on here for getting it off of our website,

00:23:56.900 --> 00:24:00.920
that specifies that this new foot,

00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:03.060
the international foot, will be used from now on

00:24:03.060 --> 00:24:04.000
and throughout the United States,

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.080
but they made an exception at the request

00:24:06.080 --> 00:24:09.010
of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey.

00:24:09.010 --> 00:24:11.719
Purely for geodetic surveys to retain

00:24:11.719 --> 00:24:14.160
the previous definition of the foot,

00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:17.240
which at that moment was named the US survey foot.

00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:20.490
But here's the interesting thing.

00:24:20.490 --> 00:24:25.010
In red it says, "geodetic surveys,"

00:24:25.010 --> 00:24:26.280
It says geodetic surveys.

00:24:26.280 --> 00:24:28.160
It doesn't say boundary surveys,

00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:30.113
will continue to use the old foot

00:24:30.113 --> 00:24:33.760
"until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient

00:24:33.760 --> 00:24:36.840
to readjust the basic geodetic survey networks

00:24:36.840 --> 00:24:38.330
in the United States,

00:24:38.330 --> 00:24:39.223
after which the ratio of a yard,

00:24:39.223 --> 00:24:43.430
equal to 0.9144 meter, shall apply."

00:24:43.430 --> 00:24:44.860
It doesn't say maybe apply.

00:24:44.860 --> 00:24:46.300
It doesn't say apply when you feel like it.

00:24:46.300 --> 00:24:47.507
It says, "shall apply."

00:24:49.370 --> 00:24:51.870
Signed by the Bureau of Standards

00:24:51.870 --> 00:24:53.330
and the Coast and Geodetic Survey directors,

00:24:53.330 --> 00:24:57.710
approved by Secretary of Commerce, June 25, 1959.

00:24:57.710 --> 00:25:00.603
So what happened or what didn't happen?

00:25:02.092 --> 00:25:03.300
Before we get to that,

00:25:03.300 --> 00:25:04.680
let's look at federal register notices.

00:25:04.680 --> 00:25:05.670
Federal register notices

00:25:05.670 --> 00:25:09.713
is how the federal government does business.

00:25:10.550 --> 00:25:12.857
This is how we communicate what we do to the world

00:25:12.857 --> 00:25:15.120
and the rest of the United States.

00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:17.160
There's quite a few that have to do with this topic.

00:25:17.160 --> 00:25:18.560
Well one came out in 1975

00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:21.520
of international versus US survey foot.

00:25:21.520 --> 00:25:23.810
I'll get back to that in a moment.

00:25:23.810 --> 00:25:27.390
1977, NGS goes entirely metric.

00:25:27.390 --> 00:25:29.890
That was for NAD 83, North American Datum of 1983.

00:25:29.890 --> 00:25:31.168
We went metric.

00:25:31.168 --> 00:25:33.103
You got that? Metric.

00:25:34.470 --> 00:25:36.770
1977, that's an important thing.

00:25:37.800 --> 00:25:39.390
Actually, this is a surprising one,

00:25:39.390 --> 00:25:40.753
1988 there was the federal register notice

00:25:40.753 --> 00:25:43.450
that proposed the permanent use of the US survey foot.

00:25:43.450 --> 00:25:46.491
There was recognizing temporary use in 1959.

00:25:46.491 --> 00:25:49.323
It was proposed as permanent then.

00:25:51.070 --> 00:25:55.850
In 1989 NAD 83 was announced in the federal register notice.

00:25:55.850 --> 00:25:57.299
And again, in 1990,

00:25:57.299 --> 00:25:59.920
the federal government restated our commitment

00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:03.363
to defining our system with respect to the metric system.

00:26:04.670 --> 00:26:05.503
So we have all of that.

00:26:05.503 --> 00:26:06.950
So what's going on here?

00:26:06.950 --> 00:26:11.640
First of all, this one, 1988, survey and mapping only.

00:26:11.640 --> 00:26:16.247
So they proposed keeping the US survey foot permanent,

00:26:17.790 --> 00:26:19.250
but only for surveying and mapping,

00:26:19.250 --> 00:26:20.960
then everything else to use international foot.

00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:21.793
That was proposed.

00:26:21.793 --> 00:26:24.473
It is said pending analysis, but it was never resolved.

00:26:25.970 --> 00:26:27.920
This is my favorite, though.

00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:32.920
In 1975, it says international foot is exact

00:26:33.840 --> 00:26:36.370
and it's used for important stuff like engineering.

00:26:36.370 --> 00:26:39.240
US survey foot is approximate used for unimportant things

00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:41.270
like mapping and land measurement.

00:26:41.270 --> 00:26:43.310
Now for the surveyors in the audience,

00:26:43.310 --> 00:26:46.490
I hope that rankles you 'cause it should.

00:26:46.490 --> 00:26:48.180
We'll get back to that also.

00:26:48.180 --> 00:26:51.483
That's the language that's in that federal register notice.

00:26:54.060 --> 00:26:55.383
So here's the situation.

00:26:56.500 --> 00:26:58.720
Here's the situation as it was, well, pretty much.

00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:01.300
This is certainly situation as it is now.

00:27:01.300 --> 00:27:05.190
You've got the United States with different feet being used

00:27:05.190 --> 00:27:06.023
in different states.

00:27:06.023 --> 00:27:07.880
So all the green states on here have adopted

00:27:07.880 --> 00:27:11.818
in one way or another, not necessarily legislatively,

00:27:11.818 --> 00:27:15.750
but in, perhaps, other ways the US survey foot.

00:27:15.750 --> 00:27:18.433
You see quite a few on there, 40 jurisdictions.

00:27:19.360 --> 00:27:22.773
Six jurisdictions have adopted international foots.

00:27:24.460 --> 00:27:28.030
Two, well four, I should say, actually on here in total,

00:27:28.030 --> 00:27:30.490
have made no commitment one way or the other.

00:27:30.490 --> 00:27:32.277
And there were six that never even created

00:27:32.277 --> 00:27:35.257
and added it to legislation at all.

00:27:35.257 --> 00:27:36.610
What do we have here?

00:27:36.610 --> 00:27:39.700
We have chaos all over again.

00:27:39.700 --> 00:27:40.973
This is a mess.

00:27:42.383 --> 00:27:43.773
It's a mess.

00:27:45.730 --> 00:27:48.110
Our heroes would be very disappointed.

00:27:48.110 --> 00:27:49.350
Now I'm expressing an opinion.

00:27:49.350 --> 00:27:51.240
I really don't know what they would think,

00:27:51.240 --> 00:27:52.930
but this seems to be totally against

00:27:52.930 --> 00:27:55.260
what they were trying to achieve

00:27:55.260 --> 00:27:57.430
during the founding of our country

00:27:57.430 --> 00:27:59.330
and the 100 years after that.

00:27:59.330 --> 00:28:00.163
And I don't know if this is true,

00:28:00.163 --> 00:28:02.490
but I think if they saw what we have right now,

00:28:02.490 --> 00:28:05.083
they would be spinning in their graves.

00:28:10.660 --> 00:28:11.840
So now we've reversed it.

00:28:11.840 --> 00:28:13.860
Before we had out of chaos, order,

00:28:13.860 --> 00:28:16.060
and now we've got out of order, chaos.

00:28:16.060 --> 00:28:17.300
The foot's still in limbo.

00:28:17.300 --> 00:28:20.590
The most recent official documentation about this situation

00:28:20.590 --> 00:28:22.653
is from 2008, from NIST.

00:28:23.610 --> 00:28:24.930
Actually there's two publications,

00:28:24.930 --> 00:28:26.027
but the one I'm interested in here is

00:28:26.027 --> 00:28:29.850
"Guide to the Use of the International System of Units."

00:28:29.850 --> 00:28:32.346
It talks about the US survey foot in there.

00:28:32.346 --> 00:28:33.340
It talks of how it's still used

00:28:33.340 --> 00:28:37.790
but that it's never been officially permanently adopted.

00:28:37.790 --> 00:28:42.270
It also repeats that 1975 federal register notice language

00:28:42.270 --> 00:28:43.233
about two feet.

00:28:44.230 --> 00:28:46.930
Again, International foot is exact, used for engineering.

00:28:46.930 --> 00:28:49.492
US foot, approximate, used for surveying and mapping.

00:28:49.492 --> 00:28:52.210
Exact, approximate, exact, approximate.

00:28:52.210 --> 00:28:53.560
You get the picture, right?

00:28:55.040 --> 00:28:57.960
Again, that should rub you the wrong way.

00:28:57.960 --> 00:29:00.776
But more importantly than if people are offended

00:29:00.776 --> 00:29:05.010
is that this is at odds with the very idea of standards,

00:29:05.010 --> 00:29:07.360
having these two things going at the same time.

00:29:10.340 --> 00:29:13.640
But then yes, we are not without blame.

00:29:13.640 --> 00:29:15.410
This is our mea culpa here.

00:29:15.410 --> 00:29:18.060
We created this problem, really.

00:29:18.060 --> 00:29:23.060
NAD, NIST or NIST's predecessor acquiesced to our request,

00:29:23.300 --> 00:29:24.960
we wanted to keep the US survey foot

00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:28.120
because we had a bunch of long distances,

00:29:28.120 --> 00:29:32.339
very long distances sometimes, measured using the old foot

00:29:32.339 --> 00:29:34.560
and State Plane Coordinates were all defined

00:29:34.560 --> 00:29:36.590
using the old foot, which are very large numbers.

00:29:36.590 --> 00:29:40.133
So that was actually, that's a justifiable reason,

00:29:41.350 --> 00:29:44.130
but it created a problem in 1959.

00:29:44.130 --> 00:29:46.980
Then we failed to do anything about it in 1986

00:29:46.980 --> 00:29:47.813
like we should have

00:29:47.813 --> 00:29:50.561
when we switched from NAD 27 to NAD 83

00:29:50.561 --> 00:29:53.953
and again, I'm embarrassed to say, in 2016,

00:29:53.953 --> 00:29:56.260
when we helped prepare draft legislation

00:29:56.260 --> 00:29:58.750
for The National Spatial Reference System.

00:29:58.750 --> 00:30:02.610
So you can find this template or draft legislation

00:30:04.650 --> 00:30:06.680
through the National Society

00:30:06.680 --> 00:30:09.463
of Professional Surveyors's website.

00:30:10.765 --> 00:30:12.220
It's probably on our website too.

00:30:12.220 --> 00:30:13.670
But here's the problem, there in yellow.

00:30:13.670 --> 00:30:15.050
It says, when you're doing

00:30:15.050 --> 00:30:16.270
your State Plane Coordinate Systems,

00:30:16.270 --> 00:30:17.130
you've got to pick a foot.

00:30:17.130 --> 00:30:20.360
Pick either US survey foot or international foot.

00:30:20.360 --> 00:30:24.380
So we've, again, perpetuated this dual system

00:30:24.380 --> 00:30:27.600
through our own actions or inaction.

00:30:27.600 --> 00:30:28.950
We want to make that right.

00:30:30.170 --> 00:30:32.630
So let's wrap up this part of the presentation now.

00:30:32.630 --> 00:30:34.730
I'm calling this "Epilogue for an erstwhile foot?"

00:30:34.730 --> 00:30:36.810
with the question mark because we really don't know

00:30:36.810 --> 00:30:37.643
what's going to happen.

00:30:37.643 --> 00:30:38.800
But again, to repeat,

00:30:38.800 --> 00:30:43.217
the old foot was defined in 1893, actually in 1866,

00:30:43.217 --> 00:30:48.217
1893, merely made it the nationwide standard,

00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:50.250
and then redefined in 1959.

00:30:50.250 --> 00:30:52.317
That's when we gave it the US survey foot name,

00:30:52.317 --> 00:30:55.020
intended as a temporary solution.

00:30:55.020 --> 00:30:57.191
We were supposed to switch when we readjusted

00:30:57.191 --> 00:31:00.680
basic geodetic surveying networks, but we didn't.

00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:01.703
We didn't do it when we switched

00:31:01.703 --> 00:31:03.500
from NAD 27 to NAD 83 in 1986.

00:31:04.850 --> 00:31:06.759
We sidestepped the issue, remember?

00:31:06.759 --> 00:31:09.370
We went completely metric in 1977.

00:31:09.370 --> 00:31:12.020
So it wasn't our problem anymore, essentially.

00:31:12.020 --> 00:31:13.400
I mean, that's one way to look at it.

00:31:13.400 --> 00:31:16.550
We just walked around it. So what do we do now?

00:31:16.550 --> 00:31:18.000
We have another chance.

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:19.055
We're switching from NAD 83

00:31:19.055 --> 00:31:20.601
to what I'm broadly calling

00:31:20.601 --> 00:31:23.410
National Spatial Reference System of 2022,

00:31:23.410 --> 00:31:24.990
which is a broad term

00:31:24.990 --> 00:31:28.550
for the new reference frames and datums of 2022

00:31:28.550 --> 00:31:30.850
and the other changes that go along with that.

00:31:32.670 --> 00:31:35.900
Okay. So what are the choices?

00:31:35.900 --> 00:31:37.300
What are the choices?

00:31:37.300 --> 00:31:38.760
First choice is do nothing,

00:31:38.760 --> 00:31:39.960
which is what we have been doing.

00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:41.172
And actually, it's interesting.

00:31:41.172 --> 00:31:43.320
Because I've been talking about this topic,

00:31:43.320 --> 00:31:44.500
I'm hearing this one a lot.

00:31:44.500 --> 00:31:45.780
People say this is what we should do.

00:31:45.780 --> 00:31:47.520
Of course, this is what we're already doing.

00:31:47.520 --> 00:31:49.940
They're saying it should be metric only.

00:31:49.940 --> 00:31:53.420
Well, we already are, essentially.

00:31:53.420 --> 00:31:55.150
I mean, we are internally.

00:31:55.150 --> 00:31:57.430
And then a state just chooses whatever foot they want.

00:31:57.430 --> 00:31:59.680
What difference does it make to us?

00:31:59.680 --> 00:32:01.310
We could just stay metric, they could have their feet,

00:32:01.310 --> 00:32:02.470
everybody could be happy.

00:32:02.470 --> 00:32:03.410
That's sort of what we have,

00:32:03.410 --> 00:32:04.950
but here's what happened.

00:32:04.950 --> 00:32:08.290
Those feet would creep back into our products and services

00:32:08.290 --> 00:32:11.293
or should I say tiptoe back into our products and services,

00:32:13.190 --> 00:32:14.820
no matter what 'cause people would ask for them,

00:32:14.820 --> 00:32:16.220
just like they're doing now.

00:32:16.220 --> 00:32:17.170
Even though we're metric,

00:32:17.170 --> 00:32:20.009
we give them stuff in feet, in their flavor,

00:32:20.009 --> 00:32:21.350
'cause that's what they want

00:32:21.350 --> 00:32:22.990
and we're nice and we do those things.

00:32:22.990 --> 00:32:26.770
So all that would do is perpetuate the situation we have.

00:32:26.770 --> 00:32:28.140
Another one is do like

00:32:28.140 --> 00:32:30.110
the 1980 national register notice proposed,

00:32:30.110 --> 00:32:32.040
which is adopt the US survey foot

00:32:32.040 --> 00:32:34.410
as permanent just for surveying and mapping

00:32:34.410 --> 00:32:35.470
and use the International foot

00:32:35.470 --> 00:32:37.350
for engineering and everything else.

00:32:37.350 --> 00:32:41.250
So that would lock in the dual system of feet.

00:32:41.250 --> 00:32:44.283
Of course, that would just perpetuate the problem as well.

00:32:45.357 --> 00:32:47.730
The other one is to use the international foot

00:32:47.730 --> 00:32:48.770
for everything.

00:32:48.770 --> 00:32:50.190
Maybe stop calling it that,

00:32:50.190 --> 00:32:54.760
just call it the foot after 2022 and be done with it.

00:32:54.760 --> 00:32:56.713
That was the intent, actually.

00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:00.170
Or, flip it around.

00:33:00.170 --> 00:33:02.170
Use the US survey foot for everything.

00:33:02.170 --> 00:33:04.380
People have proposed that too.

00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:06.127
I'm gonna say that's highly unlikely

00:33:06.127 --> 00:33:09.123
for reasons that have nothing to do with surveying.

00:33:10.027 --> 00:33:12.720
And the other one is my favorite, of course,

00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:14.212
go entirely metric.

00:33:14.212 --> 00:33:15.610
Good luck with that.

00:33:15.610 --> 00:33:16.960
I mean, I would like it,

00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:19.303
but it's probably not going to happen.

00:33:20.980 --> 00:33:22.530
Feet are going to stick around.

00:33:24.190 --> 00:33:26.010
This is what NGS proposed,

00:33:26.010 --> 00:33:29.543
using international foot for everything after 2022.

00:33:30.540 --> 00:33:35.540
Only one foot. One foot equals 0.3048 meter exactly.

00:33:35.641 --> 00:33:38.250
Make it official by working through NIST.

00:33:38.250 --> 00:33:40.800
Really they're the ones that make the call, not us,

00:33:40.800 --> 00:33:43.723
though they accommodated us in 1959.

00:33:44.960 --> 00:33:47.643
Have no option for the US survey foot going forward

00:33:47.643 --> 00:33:51.040
as of 2022, but we'll help.

00:33:51.040 --> 00:33:52.050
We're gonna help with the transition.

00:33:52.050 --> 00:33:54.380
We would fully support backward compatibility.

00:33:54.380 --> 00:33:57.357
So the correct foot would be used for State Plane 83

00:33:57.357 --> 00:33:59.380
and State Plane 27

00:33:59.380 --> 00:34:02.560
and be automatically done by our products and services.

00:34:02.560 --> 00:34:07.560
So if you go to State Plane 83 in a US Foot state,

00:34:07.910 --> 00:34:09.060
you get US Survey feet.

00:34:10.230 --> 00:34:11.520
That kind of thing.

00:34:11.520 --> 00:34:13.918
The ideas behind this is this is the time,

00:34:13.918 --> 00:34:16.530
the opportunity to make the change or making the switches.

00:34:16.530 --> 00:34:19.650
Of all the changes that are coming down the road in 2022,

00:34:19.650 --> 00:34:21.610
this is the least significant.

00:34:21.610 --> 00:34:22.800
It's the easiest one.

00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:24.030
Changing the foot,

00:34:24.030 --> 00:34:26.310
going to one foot definition is nothing compared

00:34:26.310 --> 00:34:30.920
to going to a semi-dynamic, geometric reference frame,

00:34:30.920 --> 00:34:32.440
or frames, right?

00:34:32.440 --> 00:34:35.540
Multiple frames. And other things.

00:34:35.540 --> 00:34:36.760
It will actually make things better.

00:34:36.760 --> 00:34:38.890
It is gonna cause some people

00:34:38.890 --> 00:34:43.100
some indigestion and some problems.

00:34:43.100 --> 00:34:47.430
It's inescapable, but it will get better over time.

00:34:47.430 --> 00:34:49.120
In fact, if it had been done in 1986

00:34:49.120 --> 00:34:49.953
like it would've been done,

00:34:49.953 --> 00:34:52.203
people wouldn't even be thinking about it anymore.

00:34:53.630 --> 00:34:55.600
Reminder, it's about the future, not the past.

00:34:55.600 --> 00:34:57.493
We need to look ahead to the future.

00:35:00.410 --> 00:35:02.340
So why make the change?

00:35:02.340 --> 00:35:05.711
All right, well, that was the original intent 16 years ago.

00:35:05.711 --> 00:35:08.310
Two feet is inefficient and causes confusion, right?

00:35:08.310 --> 00:35:10.970
It leads to errors that cost money.

00:35:10.970 --> 00:35:12.484
I'll give you examples.

00:35:12.484 --> 00:35:15.440
Let's face it, it's absurd to have the same unit

00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:17.230
that differs by only two parts per million.

00:35:17.230 --> 00:35:20.720
It defeats the purpose of having a length standard at all.

00:35:20.720 --> 00:35:23.600
Let's go to Arizona. That's where I'm licensed.

00:35:23.600 --> 00:35:24.630
So what I would see all the time.

00:35:24.630 --> 00:35:28.740
This map shows the difference in feet you get

00:35:28.740 --> 00:35:30.960
if you mix up your US Survey and international feet

00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:33.340
for the State Plane central zone.

00:35:33.340 --> 00:35:35.430
I worked a lot in Flagstaff, Arizona.

00:35:35.430 --> 00:35:39.160
Three and a half feet, I would see it often.

00:35:39.160 --> 00:35:41.330
Three and a half foot horizontal difference,

00:35:41.330 --> 00:35:44.084
almost every time there'd be this mix up between feet.

00:35:44.084 --> 00:35:49.084
And one time I made a couple thousand bucks in a weekend

00:35:49.574 --> 00:35:52.670
because somebody had a three foot horizontal discrepancy

00:35:52.670 --> 00:35:56.633
on a mine survey here in the, kind of in the Prescott area.

00:35:58.430 --> 00:35:59.410
Why am I complaining?

00:35:59.410 --> 00:36:01.410
I should want to have this confusion

00:36:01.410 --> 00:36:02.740
because I make money off of it.

00:36:02.740 --> 00:36:05.020
But it's not good. It's not good.

00:36:05.020 --> 00:36:06.020
It's a terrible situation.

00:36:06.020 --> 00:36:08.700
Flagstaff again, the GIS Department there

00:36:08.700 --> 00:36:11.456
got this GIS software installed on all their machines,

00:36:11.456 --> 00:36:15.440
but they didn't notice that it defaulted to US Survey feet,

00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:17.620
even though Arizona is legislatively

00:36:17.620 --> 00:36:18.870
an International foot state.

00:36:18.870 --> 00:36:21.170
So they have this problem all the time.

00:36:21.170 --> 00:36:22.370
They just stuck with it.

00:36:23.240 --> 00:36:24.830
It's worse than that.

00:36:26.219 --> 00:36:27.590
And here's one, a public service company,

00:36:27.590 --> 00:36:29.840
an electric utility uses UTM

00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:32.120
and US Survey feet in Arizona.

00:36:32.120 --> 00:36:34.230
There's the difference that you see in feet

00:36:34.230 --> 00:36:36.220
when you mix that up with international feet.

00:36:36.220 --> 00:36:37.740
You know, it's over 20 feet

00:36:37.740 --> 00:36:40.360
for the entire state, horizontal differences.

00:36:40.360 --> 00:36:43.210
These things just go on and on, right?

00:36:43.210 --> 00:36:45.230
And it's not just because we're an international foot state.

00:36:45.230 --> 00:36:48.830
It happens in all states.

00:36:48.830 --> 00:36:50.717
Right? Because you can always mix these things up.

00:36:50.717 --> 00:36:52.940
And I especially have heard a lot from people

00:36:52.940 --> 00:36:54.867
that are licensed in jurisdictions

00:36:54.867 --> 00:36:57.870
and they're licensed in international feet state

00:36:57.870 --> 00:36:59.320
and in a US Survey feet state.

00:36:59.320 --> 00:37:00.963
So it's a real problem.

00:37:03.938 --> 00:37:06.400
It's only recognized in part of the US, right?

00:37:06.400 --> 00:37:07.660
Some of the states, not others.

00:37:07.660 --> 00:37:10.380
And even within those states, not all the way,

00:37:10.380 --> 00:37:11.739
it's kind of crazy.

00:37:11.739 --> 00:37:12.673
Again, I'm gonna remind you

00:37:12.673 --> 00:37:14.590
that we'll support backward-compatibility

00:37:14.590 --> 00:37:17.850
for our products and services in the transition.

00:37:17.850 --> 00:37:20.070
And again, just gonna beat this to death,

00:37:20.070 --> 00:37:21.425
now is the time.

00:37:21.425 --> 00:37:23.750
We're making the changes for 2022.

00:37:23.750 --> 00:37:25.700
Changing the foot is trivial compared to other changes.

00:37:25.700 --> 00:37:26.870
There's no better time.

00:37:26.870 --> 00:37:28.490
And if we don't do it,

00:37:28.490 --> 00:37:31.400
these problems are never going to go away.

00:37:31.400 --> 00:37:32.600
They just won't go away.

00:37:35.431 --> 00:37:39.620
So some positive reasons for adopting a new foot

00:37:39.620 --> 00:37:40.840
or just call it the new foot,

00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:43.616
to help prevent foot confusion problems,

00:37:43.616 --> 00:37:46.870
problems that happen when you try to share data

00:37:46.870 --> 00:37:48.300
on projects, especially large projects,

00:37:48.300 --> 00:37:49.966
when it's between multiple companies,

00:37:49.966 --> 00:37:52.640
sometimes between people from different states,

00:37:52.640 --> 00:37:55.350
sometimes between people in different countries

00:37:55.350 --> 00:37:56.480
trying to share data.

00:37:56.480 --> 00:37:58.380
This happens all the time.

00:37:58.380 --> 00:37:59.880
I keep hearing examples of it.

00:38:01.206 --> 00:38:02.990
Hawaii uses US survey foot,

00:38:02.990 --> 00:38:04.695
even though they don't have it legislated,

00:38:04.695 --> 00:38:07.010
except on military bases in Hawaii.

00:38:07.010 --> 00:38:08.070
They use the International foot.

00:38:08.070 --> 00:38:09.413
That's a great situation.

00:38:10.290 --> 00:38:11.580
And then there's software.

00:38:11.580 --> 00:38:13.830
What are the software, the people that write that code do

00:38:13.830 --> 00:38:15.800
when they go to look up the definition of foot?

00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:17.280
the definition for the United States

00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:19.490
is a so-called International foot.

00:38:19.490 --> 00:38:23.140
And there's cost. This costs money.

00:38:23.140 --> 00:38:24.730
Even if you don't have a direct cost to it,

00:38:24.730 --> 00:38:27.590
there's always a frictional cost in the background

00:38:27.590 --> 00:38:29.840
because it's something you have to deal with.

00:38:31.330 --> 00:38:32.750
But there's other reasons.

00:38:32.750 --> 00:38:36.962
If you switch, Texas will be even bigger, right?

00:38:36.962 --> 00:38:39.951
Right now, as a survey foot state,

00:38:39.951 --> 00:38:44.951
it's only 4,092,414 US survey feet wide.

00:38:46.980 --> 00:38:48.610
But if they switched to international feet,

00:38:48.610 --> 00:38:50.400
they'll gain eight feet.

00:38:50.400 --> 00:38:52.210
That's as long as the bed

00:38:52.210 --> 00:38:54.100
of a full size pickup truck right there,

00:38:54.100 --> 00:38:55.250
eight additional feet.

00:38:55.250 --> 00:38:56.400
Hey, and everybody wins.

00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:58.250
That eight feet doesn't get taken from other states.

00:38:58.250 --> 00:39:00.550
All the states get bigger so it's a happy day.

00:39:02.441 --> 00:39:04.427
But there are arguments for keeping the old foot,

00:39:04.427 --> 00:39:07.320
and we don't want to ignore that.

00:39:07.320 --> 00:39:10.710
One argument is it's used for existing records and data.

00:39:10.710 --> 00:39:13.620
That is certainly true, lots of data nowadays,

00:39:13.620 --> 00:39:16.020
way more than in 1959,

00:39:16.020 --> 00:39:18.470
but it's circular because that will always exist.

00:39:18.470 --> 00:39:20.250
If that's your reason for not going forward

00:39:20.250 --> 00:39:21.480
then you can never go forward.

00:39:21.480 --> 00:39:25.170
All it does is mean you stick with US survey foot forever.

00:39:25.170 --> 00:39:27.730
That's how we got in this problem in the first place.

00:39:27.730 --> 00:39:28.800
Right?

00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:30.097
And there's the thing where people say,

00:39:30.097 --> 00:39:32.260
"Well, the old foot's the state legislation."

00:39:32.260 --> 00:39:33.300
Well, yeah, I guess it is.

00:39:33.300 --> 00:39:34.710
But as far as I know,

00:39:34.710 --> 00:39:37.690
that statute it's usually, maybe always, tied to NAD 83

00:39:37.690 --> 00:39:40.544
so it's a great opportunity

00:39:40.544 --> 00:39:43.800
when changing to 2022 to break that connection.

00:39:43.800 --> 00:39:44.633
And I've heard of this,

00:39:44.633 --> 00:39:46.500
that we need to keep the old one around

00:39:46.500 --> 00:39:48.860
to convey real property

00:39:48.860 --> 00:39:50.529
because it's in deeds and stuff like that.

00:39:50.529 --> 00:39:51.600
And this is where I take another digression.

00:39:51.600 --> 00:39:52.440
I better do it fast

00:39:52.440 --> 00:39:54.097
because I'm running low on time,

00:39:54.097 --> 00:39:55.197
but we're almost done.

00:39:58.040 --> 00:40:00.870
Let's talk about this, coordinates, deeds and distances.

00:40:00.870 --> 00:40:02.900
The foot issue is a coordinate problem.

00:40:02.900 --> 00:40:04.430
It's not really a distance problem.

00:40:04.430 --> 00:40:06.360
'cause the distances aren't usually long enough.

00:40:06.360 --> 00:40:07.890
And even if they are long enough,

00:40:07.890 --> 00:40:10.650
you get into questions of what does a horizontal distance

00:40:10.650 --> 00:40:13.766
that's 10 miles long even mean.

00:40:13.766 --> 00:40:15.870
We can talk about that some other time.

00:40:15.870 --> 00:40:17.360
But there's other problems with distance.

00:40:17.360 --> 00:40:19.360
It's just a little few examples here.

00:40:19.360 --> 00:40:20.420
First of all, reminder,

00:40:20.420 --> 00:40:22.660
the US survey foot and International foot differences

00:40:22.660 --> 00:40:24.510
is one hundredth of a foot per mile,

00:40:24.510 --> 00:40:26.980
but the standard foot according to NAD 83

00:40:26.980 --> 00:40:28.820
varied by tens of parts per millions

00:40:28.820 --> 00:40:30.520
of hundreds of parts per millions

00:40:30.520 --> 00:40:34.160
before this came along,

00:40:34.160 --> 00:40:35.720
But there's other problems.

00:40:35.720 --> 00:40:37.930
So many surveyors out here face this kind of thing.

00:40:37.930 --> 00:40:40.140
French-settled areas use the arpent.

00:40:40.140 --> 00:40:42.550
Depending on which version you use,

00:40:42.550 --> 00:40:45.500
you can differ by plus or minus seven feet per mile.

00:40:45.500 --> 00:40:48.020
Spanish-settled areas use the vara,

00:40:48.020 --> 00:40:49.920
which there's different versions of that too.

00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:53.300
They can vary by plus or minus 30 feet per mile,

00:40:53.300 --> 00:40:55.230
depending again, where you are.

00:40:55.230 --> 00:40:57.260
English-settled areas are in some ways the worst

00:40:57.260 --> 00:40:58.520
because you have the rod, the pole, the perch,

00:40:58.520 --> 00:40:59.680
whatever you want to call it.

00:40:59.680 --> 00:41:02.700
Everybody thinks it's 16 and a half feet long, but is it?

00:41:02.700 --> 00:41:05.910
The range is, I say 12 to 22 feet.

00:41:05.910 --> 00:41:07.130
It's probably should be 24 feet.

00:41:07.130 --> 00:41:08.280
But anyway, you get the idea.

00:41:08.280 --> 00:41:11.330
It ranges a lot. The range is huge.

00:41:11.330 --> 00:41:13.190
And there are places in the United States where,

00:41:13.190 --> 00:41:16.870
if I remember right, a rod of 18 feet is used.

00:41:16.870 --> 00:41:18.800
So there's all these issues.

00:41:18.800 --> 00:41:20.350
I mean, the reason I put this up there,

00:41:20.350 --> 00:41:22.830
there's huge issues already with distances

00:41:22.830 --> 00:41:26.140
that completely drown out anything

00:41:26.140 --> 00:41:29.503
of the US Survey versus international foot.

00:41:30.690 --> 00:41:32.429
I've done quite a few boundary surveys,

00:41:32.429 --> 00:41:36.010
from homestead entry surveys, public land survey systems,

00:41:36.010 --> 00:41:38.130
subdivisions, all that kind of stuff.

00:41:38.130 --> 00:41:40.690
I have never run into a problem with this,

00:41:40.690 --> 00:41:43.140
even though I'm in an international foot state,

00:41:43.140 --> 00:41:45.730
which means probably most of those survey records

00:41:45.730 --> 00:41:47.762
are in US survey feet.

00:41:47.762 --> 00:41:51.310
From the late 1980s backwards in time,

00:41:51.310 --> 00:41:52.143
they're all going to be survey feet,

00:41:52.143 --> 00:41:54.480
but it's never been a problem

00:41:54.480 --> 00:41:56.030
because the difference is so small.

00:41:56.030 --> 00:41:58.530
What I'll say is if your biggest problem

00:41:58.530 --> 00:42:01.340
on a boundary survey is whether it's international foot

00:42:01.340 --> 00:42:03.780
or US survey foot, pat yourself on the back

00:42:03.780 --> 00:42:05.480
because you've got an easy survey.

00:42:06.875 --> 00:42:07.753
They know that.

00:42:07.753 --> 00:42:10.193
Back to the arguments for keeping the old foot.

00:42:11.890 --> 00:42:13.240
We already talked about these things.

00:42:13.240 --> 00:42:15.100
So I say necessary to convey real property,

00:42:15.100 --> 00:42:17.545
well somehow the six states that have international foot

00:42:17.545 --> 00:42:20.860
were able to convey real property without a problem.

00:42:20.860 --> 00:42:22.560
So my question,

00:42:22.560 --> 00:42:26.060
is this really just a red herring to avoid change?

00:42:26.060 --> 00:42:28.900
Let's face it, people don't like change.

00:42:28.900 --> 00:42:31.132
I'm feeling that like this is being thrown up there

00:42:31.132 --> 00:42:35.970
as something to just prevent change.

00:42:35.970 --> 00:42:38.510
Change just for the sake of change is no good,

00:42:38.510 --> 00:42:39.450
but we're talking about change

00:42:39.450 --> 00:42:41.563
that actually is a good change.

00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:47.770
Now, a box around this whole state legislation thing.

00:42:47.770 --> 00:42:50.050
This is going to tie back to what we talked about

00:42:50.050 --> 00:42:52.390
early on in the webinar,

00:42:52.390 --> 00:42:56.450
which is the supreme law of the land, the US Constitution.

00:42:56.450 --> 00:42:59.487
Again, Article I, Section 8, Clause 5,

00:42:59.487 --> 00:43:02.090
"Congress shall have power to coin money,

00:43:02.090 --> 00:43:04.650
regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin,

00:43:04.650 --> 00:43:07.140
and fix the standard of weights and measures."

00:43:07.140 --> 00:43:08.630
What does this mean?

00:43:08.630 --> 00:43:11.165
That means, okay, first of all, I'm not an attorney.

00:43:11.165 --> 00:43:13.160
So you can take this with a grain of salt.

00:43:13.160 --> 00:43:15.930
But to me it means if NIST defines single foot,

00:43:15.930 --> 00:43:17.097
only that foot can be used.

00:43:17.097 --> 00:43:20.070
Now state legislating different would be unconstitutional.

00:43:20.070 --> 00:43:23.150
That would be the same as a state coining its our money.

00:43:23.150 --> 00:43:25.890
Do you think the feds would stand by and allow that?

00:43:25.890 --> 00:43:27.840
The only reason there's two different feet right now

00:43:27.840 --> 00:43:31.782
is because that 1959 issue has never been settled.

00:43:31.782 --> 00:43:33.820
I'm saying it's time to settle it now.

00:43:33.820 --> 00:43:35.880
Let's not get confused here.

00:43:35.880 --> 00:43:38.670
This is not a state's rights issue.

00:43:38.670 --> 00:43:40.747
The 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights says,

00:43:40.747 --> 00:43:42.400
"The powers not delegated to the United States

00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:45.808
by the Constitution are reserved to the States

00:43:45.808 --> 00:43:47.170
or to the people."

00:43:47.170 --> 00:43:48.890
Well, this one is delegated

00:43:48.890 --> 00:43:50.160
to the United States by the Constitution.

00:43:50.160 --> 00:43:52.193
So it's not reserved to the state.

00:43:53.900 --> 00:43:55.080
This is a really important thing.

00:43:55.080 --> 00:43:56.520
And again, I'm not an attorney,

00:43:56.520 --> 00:44:00.263
but I think it looks pretty straightforward here to me.

00:44:03.510 --> 00:44:05.760
I'm advocating that we take a stand for standards.

00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:07.310
That's what NGS is going to do.

00:44:08.290 --> 00:44:11.370
Remember, we created a foot problem out of convenience.

00:44:11.370 --> 00:44:12.380
It's supposed to be temporary,

00:44:12.380 --> 00:44:13.630
and that's only for geodetic work.

00:44:13.630 --> 00:44:16.580
Boundary surveys were not even considered in that decision.

00:44:17.700 --> 00:44:20.620
Keeping the US survey foot is an anti-standard.

00:44:20.620 --> 00:44:22.510
It's in standards limbo right now.

00:44:22.510 --> 00:44:24.670
A single definition is efficient,

00:44:24.670 --> 00:44:26.973
clean and flat out the right thing to do.

00:44:28.310 --> 00:44:29.143
So what should we do?

00:44:29.143 --> 00:44:30.450
Should we issue an order

00:44:30.450 --> 00:44:34.030
to adopt single foot equals 0.3048 meter?

00:44:34.030 --> 00:44:36.680
That's what it took to fix the mess in 1893.

00:44:36.680 --> 00:44:38.772
It's a long overdue solution.

00:44:38.772 --> 00:44:43.461
And I'm submitting that that's within the legal authority

00:44:43.461 --> 00:44:44.294
of the federal government.

00:44:44.294 --> 00:44:46.930
That being said, at least speaking for myself,

00:44:46.930 --> 00:44:51.050
but I think speaking for leadership

00:44:51.050 --> 00:44:52.360
and the federal government,

00:44:52.360 --> 00:44:54.860
that it's better to persuade than to coerce.

00:44:54.860 --> 00:44:56.610
That's the purpose of this webinar.

00:44:58.100 --> 00:44:59.013
In closing,

00:45:01.470 --> 00:45:02.303
NGS essentially created this problem,

00:45:02.303 --> 00:45:04.020
and now we want to help fix it.

00:45:04.020 --> 00:45:06.399
Again, we will fully support backward compatibility.

00:45:06.399 --> 00:45:09.960
We want to make this as simple and painless as possible.

00:45:09.960 --> 00:45:12.030
Changing the foot is minor

00:45:12.030 --> 00:45:13.050
compared to the other changes

00:45:13.050 --> 00:45:15.660
that are coming down the pipe for 2022.

00:45:15.660 --> 00:45:20.410
And there's our NGS.feedback@noaa.gov email address.

00:45:20.410 --> 00:45:23.280
Please send us your thoughts, opinions, concerns,

00:45:23.280 --> 00:45:24.660
questions about this.

00:45:24.660 --> 00:45:26.060
We do want to hear from you.

00:45:28.310 --> 00:45:30.550
Just remember, this is about the future.

00:45:30.550 --> 00:45:33.093
Remember our heroes and our hard-won victories.

00:45:35.823 --> 00:45:37.160
We're at the end of the webinar here,

00:45:37.160 --> 00:45:38.690
but one last thing.

00:45:38.690 --> 00:45:40.200
I'm sure there's people in the audience

00:45:40.200 --> 00:45:41.780
who still want to stick with the US survey foot

00:45:41.780 --> 00:45:44.750
and will say so, but I implore you

00:45:46.810 --> 00:45:49.581
to look at the situation in its broadest sense

00:45:49.581 --> 00:45:54.110
and see that really, again, my opinion,

00:45:54.110 --> 00:45:56.310
it's a mistake to have two units

00:45:56.310 --> 00:45:57.570
that are nearly identical

00:45:57.570 --> 00:46:00.100
and it's something that the men you see

00:46:00.100 --> 00:46:03.550
here on the screen, our heroes,

00:46:03.550 --> 00:46:05.470
something they would have opposed.

00:46:05.470 --> 00:46:07.273
And that's it. Thank you very much.

00:46:08.584 --> 00:46:11.336
<v Christine>Thank you Michael, for that presentation.</v>

00:46:11.336 --> 00:46:12.639
And thank you everybody, to our audience

00:46:12.639 --> 00:46:14.190
for listening and joining

00:46:14.190 --> 00:46:17.500
and sending in your questions and thoughts and feedback.

00:46:17.500 --> 00:46:19.520
I will say that, as things have been coming in,

00:46:19.520 --> 00:46:22.180
a lot of them seem to be just as much comments

00:46:22.180 --> 00:46:23.500
as they do questions.

00:46:23.500 --> 00:46:25.840
So I will run through a couple, Michael,

00:46:25.840 --> 00:46:27.490
to give you and the audience a sense

00:46:27.490 --> 00:46:29.610
of a type of thoughts we have coming in.

00:46:29.610 --> 00:46:33.190
I think a lot of the topics were at least alluded to

00:46:33.190 --> 00:46:34.750
by your presentation,

00:46:34.750 --> 00:46:37.130
and we'll get a sense of what people have been saying.

00:46:37.130 --> 00:46:38.400
And when it's a clarifying question,

00:46:38.400 --> 00:46:41.740
we can pause and let you chime in with an answer.

00:46:41.740 --> 00:46:43.633
So some of the comments.

00:46:47.480 --> 00:46:50.630
There was a comment about a concern of implication

00:46:50.630 --> 00:46:53.090
on legal deeds, which you did talk about.

00:46:53.090 --> 00:46:57.730
There was a comment about the need to,

00:46:57.730 --> 00:47:00.056
or the implications that the state legislation

00:47:00.056 --> 00:47:03.800
would have to be changed to make a change.

00:47:03.800 --> 00:47:08.160
And there was a question asking you has NGS worked

00:47:08.160 --> 00:47:10.850
with states or talked about states given the lead time

00:47:10.850 --> 00:47:12.380
for changes in legislation.

00:47:12.380 --> 00:47:13.790
I thought you might mention what's been going on

00:47:13.790 --> 00:47:15.733
with the 2022 for that.

00:47:16.730 --> 00:47:18.976
<v Michael>Yeah. Thanks, Christine.</v>

00:47:18.976 --> 00:47:21.310
Thanks everybody for your comments and questions.

00:47:21.310 --> 00:47:24.420
I know the statute is an issue,

00:47:24.420 --> 00:47:27.333
but of course that statute is tied to NAD 83 almost,

00:47:28.210 --> 00:47:29.093
maybe always.

00:47:30.230 --> 00:47:33.107
At any rate, we have been working with NSDS

00:47:33.107 --> 00:47:35.700
on getting some draft legislation prepared,

00:47:35.700 --> 00:47:37.631
and we made the mistake of not addressing

00:47:37.631 --> 00:47:40.770
the US Survey versus international foot

00:47:40.770 --> 00:47:43.920
when that model statute was put together.

00:47:43.920 --> 00:47:45.523
But my understanding is,

00:47:47.198 --> 00:47:48.031
we've been talking to people,

00:47:48.031 --> 00:47:50.620
and have not yet run into a state where

00:47:50.620 --> 00:47:52.280
they've gone so far down the road

00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:53.330
that they can't turn back

00:47:53.330 --> 00:47:57.143
from specifying US survey feet in statute.

00:47:58.270 --> 00:47:59.460
Hopefully that's true for everyone.

00:47:59.460 --> 00:48:03.860
So far, it hasn't gotten to that point.

00:48:03.860 --> 00:48:05.590
I'm hoping that's still the case.

00:48:05.590 --> 00:48:08.820
And we very much want people to update the statute

00:48:08.820 --> 00:48:10.970
for the National Spatial Reference System,

00:48:10.970 --> 00:48:14.358
and actually other things as well with statute,

00:48:14.358 --> 00:48:17.860
which has probably more than I can talk about right now.

00:48:17.860 --> 00:48:19.920
<v Christine>Great. Thanks Michael.</v>

00:48:19.920 --> 00:48:22.780
Just to give you an example of some more comments,

00:48:22.780 --> 00:48:24.880
some people did bring up the issue of concerns

00:48:24.880 --> 00:48:26.810
about a lot of legacy data

00:48:26.810 --> 00:48:30.033
and how that would not be simple to change quickly.

00:48:31.090 --> 00:48:35.510
People mentioned how the defaults in software play a role

00:48:35.510 --> 00:48:38.450
in this and the expenses or lack thereof.

00:48:38.450 --> 00:48:42.470
And some software is starting to incorporate US survey foot

00:48:42.470 --> 00:48:43.683
as the default.

00:48:45.530 --> 00:48:47.800
A comment reinforcing some of your points

00:48:47.800 --> 00:48:52.800
that parts per million is less than a measure of a survey.

00:48:53.320 --> 00:48:54.250
So it's irrelevant

00:48:54.250 --> 00:48:56.583
unless you're using State Plane Coordinates.

00:48:57.490 --> 00:49:00.010
So as long as there was that backward compatibility

00:49:00.010 --> 00:49:01.210
with State Plane Coordinates,

00:49:01.210 --> 00:49:04.063
this could be fairly straightforward.

00:49:08.930 --> 00:49:10.940
There was at least one example brought up

00:49:10.940 --> 00:49:13.010
of how a state was pressured

00:49:13.010 --> 00:49:15.010
to go towards international foot

00:49:16.010 --> 00:49:18.140
by their Departments of Transportation,

00:49:18.140 --> 00:49:20.563
but that's caused its own problems

00:49:20.563 --> 00:49:21.913
and it might be going back.

00:49:26.880 --> 00:49:31.790
There's some comments about metric more broadly.

00:49:36.810 --> 00:49:37.643
That might be all I have.

00:49:37.643 --> 00:49:39.130
Don't really have time to dig through

00:49:39.130 --> 00:49:41.810
as these continue to come in,

00:49:41.810 --> 00:49:43.750
and we're just about at the three o'clock hour.

00:49:43.750 --> 00:49:46.380
But I would encourage everybody as you're signing off,

00:49:46.380 --> 00:49:48.793
if you have any other comments to send them in.

00:49:49.860 --> 00:49:53.470
And also Michael has that email address on the screen.

00:49:53.470 --> 00:49:56.190
So do you want to have any closing words on this topic

00:49:56.190 --> 00:49:57.543
as we wrap up, Michael?

00:49:59.200 --> 00:50:00.660
<v Michael>I guess, well, we're out of time.</v>

00:50:00.660 --> 00:50:03.430
And I, first of all, I really appreciate all the people

00:50:03.430 --> 00:50:05.650
that attended the webinar.

00:50:05.650 --> 00:50:06.530
Thank you for that.

00:50:06.530 --> 00:50:09.360
And we appreciate your comments, questions, concerns.

00:50:09.360 --> 00:50:12.970
I think that, like I said early on,

00:50:12.970 --> 00:50:15.270
right now, it really is about a conversation,

00:50:15.270 --> 00:50:17.230
even though it was just me talking in this webinar.

00:50:17.230 --> 00:50:18.650
We want to know what you think.

00:50:18.650 --> 00:50:20.860
We want to figure out how best to move forward.

00:50:20.860 --> 00:50:24.310
And we wanted to talk to the geospatial community,

00:50:24.310 --> 00:50:25.910
especially the surveyors first

00:50:25.910 --> 00:50:27.640
and then start talking to NIST.

00:50:27.640 --> 00:50:29.180
NIST is just now getting engaged.

00:50:29.180 --> 00:50:33.770
I think I have some NIST personnel in the audience as well,

00:50:33.770 --> 00:50:34.603
which is good.

00:50:34.603 --> 00:50:35.760
So I think that's it for now.

00:50:35.760 --> 00:50:36.963
Thanks again, everybody.

00:50:37.818 --> 00:50:39.730
<v Christine>Thanks very much for presenting, Michael.</v>

00:50:39.730 --> 00:50:41.320
Thank you everybody for attending.

00:50:41.320 --> 00:50:43.330
And just a quick reminder,

00:50:43.330 --> 00:50:46.320
please do fill out our evaluation survey.

00:50:46.320 --> 00:50:47.946
A lot of people ask how big the webinar is.

00:50:47.946 --> 00:50:52.590
You were online with about 730 people throughout today,

00:50:52.590 --> 00:50:53.960
which is a great number.

00:50:53.960 --> 00:50:55.280
So thanks so much for calling in

00:50:55.280 --> 00:50:57.800
and making this a successful webinar series.

00:50:57.800 --> 00:51:00.200
We'll sign off for now and talk to you next month.

00:51:00.200 --> 00:51:01.800
Thanks, everybody.