National Public Radio reported on 23 April that the Four Corners’s Monument is not located in the right place. This is how the AP reporter explains this odd situation.
Marker was off, but Four Corners monument legit
Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12208248?IA...www.sltrib.com
Yahoo! News
AP
Wed Apr 22, 7:58 pm ET
By ELIZABETH WHITE, Associated Press Writer
SALT LAKE CITY – Many a family touring the Southwest has made a stop in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado — all at the same time.
Or have they?
News reports this week that the site of the Four Corners monument was off by a whopping 2 1/2 miles drummed up some concern that anyone who ever got down on their hands and knees to touch four states at once had lived a bit of a lie.
Not to worry, government officials say. The marker is indeed the only place where four U.S. states meet, even though surveyors were a little off when they set the marker in 1875.
The marker is 1,807.14 feet east of where it should have been placed, said Dave Doyle, chief geodetic surveyor for the National Geodetic Survey, which defines and manages a national coordinate system. That's about the length of six football fields, but Doyle calls the measurement a "home run" given the limited tools surveyors had to work with back then.
"Their ability to replicate that exact point — what they did was phenomenal, what they did was spot on," Doyle said. "(They) nailed it."
There would be about a 2.5-mile discrepancy had the monument been measured to the 109th meridian west of the Prime Meridian passing through Greenwich, England, but Doyle said that isn't what happened. The statute creating Colorado's western boundary mandated measurement from the Washington Meridian, which passes through the old Naval Observatory in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
In any case, the measurement differences don't matter anymore, Doyle said, because "the monument controls."
"Where the marker is now is accepted," Doyle said. "Even if it's 10 miles off, once it's adopted by the states, which it has been, the numerical errors are irrelevant. It becomes the legal definition" of the Four Corners.
___
On the Net: National Geodetic Survey: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
BACKGROUND
Mr. Doyle's observation is not quite accurate. We accepted the monument because we thought the location was correct by the survey numbers. It turns out that the old measurements are not correct, and that is the issue.
Mr. Doyle’s attitude about this situation seems rather too cavalier. The Colorado / Utah boundary is 280 miles long. I will bet that the Colorado government does not feel indifferent about all the land in a rectangle 1807 feet times 280 miles.
A jog in the line description further complicates the Utah / Colorado Boundary. That jog occurs just south of highway 46 as it enters Paradox Valley Colorado. Another jog in the boundary of Utah and Arizona further complicates the location of the four corners. That jog is west of Oljeto and east of Nokal Mesa.
If there is an 1807 foot discrepancy in the east boundary of Utah and that discrepancy moves the real boundary west, then that situation generates an interesting question that must be answered about the real Utah / Nevada boundary line. Is it 1800 feet or more off plumb from the markers as well? The problem that shifted the boundaries at Four Corners probably also happened in putting up the markers that delineate the west boundary of Utah.
Depending on how much the accepted Utah / Nevada boundary line is off from the real measurements –
then just how much of Wendover sits in Nevada and in Utah?
How much of that disputed aquifer might really fall into the jurisdiction of Utah, not in Nevada?
Furthermore
The true low elevation of Utah in Beaver Dam Wash may in fact be lower than is currently accepted. In 2006, exhaustive scientific inquiry with satellite and global positioning technologies discover that the lowest point in Utah was in fact lower than the official low elevation number (2, 178 feet in reality) and in a different position than traditionally accepted. If the boundaries are really off, that means a stretch of land lower than 2000 feet may actually exist in Utah, not in Nevada or Arizona.
ASIDE – one wonders if the same problems involved in placing the Colorado / Utah boundary line markers in the wrong places also misplaced the markers of the Colorado / Kansas boundary as well. If the accepted line is wrong from the real survey numbers, then the low point of Colorado and the high point of Kansas may be entirely different places than the current accepted places, both of which crowd the boundary.
THE POINT
This news story reminds us how out-of-date are many boundaries in the United States. Certainly the county boundaries in Utah make no logical sense.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
What logical reason can we give for the existence of Utah’s three most arbitrary counties – Daggett, Piute, and Wasatch Counties?
Consider Bald Mountain Pass. As we drive eastward on Highway 150 approaching the pass, we drive first in Summit County, then in Wasatch County. Reid’s Peak, Bald Mountain, and Murdock Mountain come clearly into view. They line up like three big sentries on the north horizon.
Reid’s Peak stand in reality in Summit County.
The west face of Bald Mountain, visible at Trial Lake, stands in Summit County. The east face of Bald Mountain, visible at Mirror Lake, stands in Duchesne County. The summit of Bald Mountain straddles the Duchesne and Summit County line.
Murdock Mountain sits almost entirely in Duchesne County. I say almost because the highest point of Wasatch County is really a shoulder of Murdock Mountain, which is to say, the highest point of Wasatch County is a shoulder of a Mountain associated in the popular mind with Duchesne County.
Before we drive onto Bald Mountain Pass, Highway 150 makes two rather gentle loops. Both those loops sit not in Wasatch County but in Summit County. As we drive eastward, from the pass, the road starts to drop. Within 200 feet, the road enters the northwestern corner of Duchesne County. The road passes Moosehorn Lake, Mirror Lake, Pass Lake, and Butterfly Lake, all within Duchesne County. A few feet north of the Butterfly Lake at Hayden Pass, the road enters Summit County.
No direct Duchesne County road links the county seat of Duschesne County and Mirror Lake. No direct Summit County road links the county seat and Bald Mountain Pass. Nor should there be for that matter.
Consider the drive to Soldier Summit. As we drive eastward on Highway 6, we drive in Utah County. Then – as Wikipedia states it in admirably clarity:
Located where the road makes a brief bend through the extreme southwest corner of Wasatch County, Soldier Summit historically had more to do with nearby Utah County.
[Soldier Summit entry of Wikipedia 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_Summit]
How do we explain logically that south east dog leg of Utah County that takes in the north end of Scofield Reservoir? How do we explain logically the summit of Mount Nebo, a Mountain always associated in the popular mind with Juab County. The summit is in Utah County.
Why is the highest point of Juab County not Mount Nebo but Ipabah Peak at the boundary of Nevada? In other words why does Juab County include a long narrow strip of desert from Nephi Mona westward to the Nevada border?
Why did the needs and interests of the towns and ranches of west desert Utah get divided up into six different counties instead of consolidated into one county?
THE POINT
Salt Lake County has more than a million residents. Utah County has almost 400,000 residents. Daggett County has 920 residents. Give or take. The residents of Daggett County should find this unfair.
10 — count them – 10 of Utah’s Counties have populations of 10,000 people or less. The residents of those counties should find this unfair as well.
Utah has 29 counties, not thirty mind you, but 29. If the boundaries for these 29 counties were drawn up for equal population, they would all have 94,360 residents. If every county in Utah had 200,000 plus or minus a thousand residents, Utah would have 13 counties.
RIGHT ASCENSION URGES THE LEGISLATURE TO GET OFF ITS DUFF.
It is the 21st Century. Utah should insist on its real state boundaries using the latest technology. Utah should have counties that have equal power to raise revenues for public services. For starters, Salt Lake City should be An independent city county. The legislature should abolish the current county system and create thirteen new counties that each have 200,000 residents.
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