The Alabama Legislature currently has a bill pending, HB 333, sponsored by Rep. Keahey, which essentially waters down Alabama's regulation for the practice of land surveying - an excerpt of the proposed bill is presented below:
Section 2. (a) The practice of rural land surveyor is limited to rural areas and municipalities with a population of less than 5,000.
(b) To qualify as a rural land surveyor one must meet one of the following requirements:
(1) Graduation from a four-year curriculum in civil engineering or forestry and successfully passing a written examination approved by the board relating to the laws, procedures, and practices of land surveying in Alabama.
(2) Graduation from an approved technical curriculum related to surveying or forestry; two years of supervised surveying experience; and successfully passing a written examination approved by the board relating to the laws, procedures, and practices of land surveying in Alabama.
(3) Eight or more years of field experience in land surveying and letters of recommendation from at least three individuals that will attest to satisfactory surveying work during these years.
Option 3 above bypasses the examination, it allows anyone to recommend the applicant, and thereby bypasses vetting of applicants. The traditional approach pursued, implemented and recommended by NCEES and most State Registration Boards has been to strive for a stable foundation which is not based on any single yardstick, but instead a combination of education, experience and examinations. Further, the case here in Pennsylvania has been to ensure that the applicant has some minimum amount of experience with boundary surveys, has been exposed to both field and office practices, and that experience gained has been progressive, and under the oversight of a licensed professional.
The full bill text is available here: AL HB333
This bill is inconsistent with all prior efforts toward regulation of the surveying profession in Alabama, is inconsistent with NCEES recommendations and their Model Law, and otherwise ill-advised in many ways.
Alabama residents are strongly urged to consider contacting their representatives and recommending opposition to this bill - call (334)242-7600 and ask to be put in touch with your representative.
Posts
I would be curious to know how the entire U.S. government pulls together a national surveying system, if, as you are indicating, individual states maintain separate policies and procedures?
Furthermore, how do you go about paying people in the surveying profession between Alabama and Pennsylvania, if they are accredited differently?
Jeff Thurston
Jeff, this relates to the laws regulating the surveying profession - states have autonomy in how to implement their own laws, however they have gradually adopted a set of national standards where it comes to fundamentals and principles and practices examinations, recognized university accreditations for evaluating academic credentials, and now they are working toward implementing standards for amount of professional experience and continuing professional competency (continuing education) toward achieving consistency. NCEES, the national engineering and surveying societies, and the state engineering and surveying societies are working collaboratively on this.
As far as a national cadastre... heh, that's a whole different animal...
I am a Professional Surveyor in Alabama, and I have practiced in the counties that the representive reprents. This region is an atrocious nightmare for surveyors anyways, and this would create more litagation and problems than these people could even fathom. There is surveyor shortage in this region, but no a desperation for the chaos this would create.
I too am a professional surveyor in Alabama. The scary part of the proposed bill is the language that is eliminated from the code. That language used to protect the public and the profession from unlicensed individuals pretending to be surveyors. Further, "municipalities" with a population of 5000 or less include Citronelle, Satsuma, Mt. Vernon, Wilmer...all within the very populated Mobile County.
Dave,
Thank you for putting this on a national scale. It is truly frightening to think that a precedent may be set that undermines the efforts of the ASPLS to restore prestige to a profession maintained by several of this countries founding fathers. As an engineer in Alabama I am forced to look at HB333 in a different light. What would happen if rural engineers were next, or rural doctors? Better yet, rural attorneys... I've seen "The Peoples' Court," and I stayed at a holiday inn express last night... does that count?
regards