The Surveyors at SSE help AECI at Auction

 

POPLAR BLUFF, MO – Schultz Surveying and Engineering, Inc. (SSE) was chosen by Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. (AECI) to perform surveying services on over 700 acres of land near their New Madrid Power Plant location.

The land was purchased by AECI in 2012 to construct a railroad spur from the main Burlington Northern line west of Highway 61 to the Cotton Belt line running to their power plant. The property no longer needed for the project is being auctioned off by AECI on July 12th. Before selling the property AECI knew they would need to provide accurate legal descriptions and maps for the real estate transaction.

The survey included 8 tracts of land comprising just over 700 acres in southeast Missouri along the Mississippi River. SSE owner Stan Schultz stated, “As a rural resident I love working with our cooperatives and AECI is a great group to work for.  We have also helped Sho-Me Power, Clay County Electric, Black River Electric and several other cooperatives before.  Having a staff that understands what it takes to produce and deliver electricity to rural Missourians makes working for our electrical cooperatives very enjoyable.”

Don Berry, R.L.S. of SSE concluded ‘The survey and subsequent plats, as well as the full-color aerial map we provided were a bit above the routine, but because this property was being auctioned off we knew the potential buyers would want a good view of what they were bidding on.  I always enjoy working for AECI because their folks are so professional and Mr. Murray gave very clear instructions.”

Schultz and Summers Engineering & Surveying Highlights Their FEMA Flood Surveys

Almost up

We just added some billboards to our advertising plan in Branson.  Because of the new flood maps many homeowners find themselves in a FEMA flood zone.  These billboards highlight our surveying services and how we have helped hundreds of customers save thousands of dollars on flood insurance. 

This one is done

Schultz and Summers Engineering & Surveying December Employee of the Month Ed Roll

Ed Roll Paying tunes

POPLAR BLUFF, MO- Schultz and Summers Engineering is pleased to announce the January employee of the month was Ed Roll from the Poplar Bluff office.  Owner Bob Summers said, “Ed has been a solid performer in our company for a long time.  He is a top performer who saves our customers time and money.”

Ed will be celebrating his 8th anniversary with SSE in September.  As party chief of a survey crew he is responsible for going out to the job site and marking the appropriate lines while gathering all the necessary data for the engineers to design a project with.  Summers added, “Ed is a big reason so many businesses in Southeast Missouri call us for their surveying and engineering needs.  He does things right the first time.  He makes less trips to the field and gets more done while he is there than most surveyors.  His accurate work not only saves time but it also makes our design work easier and precise.”

Ed lives in Puxico, Missouri.  Before joining SSE he worked at Gates Rubber Company in Poplar Bluff.   SSE Survey department manager Grady Robinett said, “Having Ed as a party chief makes my job alot easier.  I can send him out on any job and never worry if he can handle it.  He is smart, experienced and always gets the job done!”

Ed is an accomplished musician and plays lead guitar, bass guitar, and keyboards in a local rock and roll band.  When asked what he liked best about working at SSE he said, “I love the outdoors.  I started my career as a surveyor before working at Gates, but I found I missed the outdoors and surveying.  There is nothing like surveying a roadway, power line or commercial site.  It’s fun to survey a tract of barren land and then see something useful built on it all based on the surveying we did before anything was built.”   

In honor of Ed being awarded January employee of the month SSE will donate $100 on his behalf to the Shriners Hospitals for Children.  St. Louis Shriners hospital delivers the highest quality of care to children with a host of orthopedic and neuromusculoskeletal disorders and diseases.  Ed has several family members who were Shriners and wanted to support their efforts to help children.   

“Ed has worked on some very important projects in Missouri.  He staked Highways 67, 13, and 5, as well as major power lines across Southern Missouri for Show-Me-Power.  He is an experienced surveyor and we are very fortunate to have him on the SSE team,” concluded owner Stan Schultz.

  

Stan Schultz Summarizes The FERC Issue for the Lake

SSE BREIFS BAGNELL DAM REALTOR’S ON SHORELINE PROTECTION PLAN

 

LAKE OZARK, MO- November 9, 2011. The Bagnell Dam realtors held their first of four workshops to help the members better understand the recent Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) introduced this summer.   They invited a few local experts including Bryan Vance from Ameren Missouri, Christine Cisar from Arrowhead Title and Stan Schultz from Schultz and Summers Engineering.  Stan said, “This forum provided us a great opportunity to better understand what FERC is requiring in the SMP, how it is impacting lake property owners, as well as giving me a chance to explain how our surveying services can help homeowners protect their property.” 

Vance began the meeting with a very informative presentation on the history of land acquisition at the lake and how Ameren Missouri came to be in charge of shoreline management.  He said, “Until 1982 the US Army Corps of Engineers managed the shoreline. Since that time Ameren has taken over the lead role in permitting and trying to get an SMP approved.” 

He had several slides showing how elevation lines conflicted with the assumed property boundaries and gave examples of homes that were on the project property and not even on the property owned by their owner.  Vance added, “Many of these structures have been there for years and these owners have no recourse.  We are asking FERC to allow us to move the project boundary line down to the shoreline so that these encroaching structures ownership questions can be cleared up.”

Bryan Vance explains how Ameren is trying to fix the problem.

While Ameren is working with FERC to adopt a reasonable SMP and get these ownership issues resolved it seems that the bureaucrats in Washington DC have other plans.  Despite strong opposition from Missouri’s congressional delegation, FERC seems determined to force homeowners to remove these structures from below the project boundary line.  Senator Blunt recently said, “This is ridiculous. An example of another federal agency acting as if common sense has been thrown out the window,”     

Ameren took over the permitting role in 1983 and in 2001 they began working re-licensing.  They held countless meeting with lake residents to come up with a workable SMP and were issued a new license in 2007 with the caveat that a revised SMP be submitted in 1 year.  Vance pointed out that in 2008 FERC posted the revised SMP and made no mention of nonconforming structures.  He added, “FERC still has to render a final order on the SMP, and we have no idea when that will be.  Right now we have already started working to move the project boundary line down to the lake and avoid causing the effected home owner any more problems.”

After Mr. Vance finished, Christine Cisar from Arrowhead Title and Stan Schultz from Schultz and Summers Engineering each gave short presentations explaining how title insurance and surveys could help homeowners deal with these boundary issues.  Christine went through several examples of lake front property deeds and the problems the old legal descriptions are causing today.  She mentioned, “Legal descriptions have a hard time following contour lines.  Contour lines are not flat and can intersect adjoining properties at different levels.  At the lake these lines are causing some serious problems and the only way to know for sure where a contour line crosses a property is to hire a surveyor.”

Stan reiterated some of the points others speakers had made and he explained why some areas of the lake have different project boundary lines.  “Just under 30% of the lake front deeds use the metes and bounds description and the others use an elevation number.  To make it even more confusing there are 14 separate elevation levels used in those deeds,” mentioned Schultz.  He continued, “Elevation levels on a property can dramatically change over time because of issues like erosion and fill being added.  These things can change the contour of property, which only complicates the boundary disputes.”

Stan explains how a survey can help deal with boundary issues.

All the speakers emphasized how import surveys will be as the lake area works through this process with FERC.  One participant asked Schultz what a survey like this would cost?  Stan replied, “We have worked hard to reasonably price our survey services at the lake.  We charge $400 for a flood elevation; $150 to mark the project boundary line and a boundary survey for an average lake lot would be around $1000.”  He added, “If you have a unique need or a large property we would have to look at the project and give you a specific bid for the survey work.”

Dee Dee Jacobs

At one point in the seminar the participants were asked if anyone had come across skittish buyers over this issue.  Almost every hand in the class went up.  When asked if any transactions had fallen through two hands went up.  Most agreed that it was impacting lake front property.  Dee Dee Jacobs with Jacobs Real Estate Partners RE/MAX, said she has definitely been dealing with the issue, “FERC’s ruling is having a devastating effect on lake front properties and we have added new discloser language to our contract to make sure everyone is informed of the situation.  The seminar was very useful in helping me better understand the problem and Stan did a great job of explaining how the elevation levels affect ownership and how a survey can help property owner’s deal with where the contour line crosses their property.”

While the FERC issue has become a huge issue locally and has even garnered national attention, many in our area are just learning the details about what property owners can do.  Legislation has been introduced in Washington to fix this problem, but for now Ameren and homeowners are in limbo.  Schultz concluded, “We want to do whatever we can to fix this problem as quickly as possible.  This is negatively affecting my business and the longer it takes the damage just grows.  Providing property owners with accurate and reasonably priced surveys is just one thing we can do to help!”     

Wendell Beard Joins Schultz and Summers Engineering

He brings SSE over 35 years of surveying experience in

 Taney, Stone, Barry, Ozark and Christian Counties.

BRANSON, MO – Schultz and Summers Engineering is proud to announce the addition of Wendell Beard to their company.  Wendell spent 30 years of his career working for Larry Gardner, owner of Midwest Surveyors and the former Taney County Surveyor.  Owner Stan Schultz said, “Wendell brings a wealth of knowledge of the Branson region to our surveying department.  His 35 years experience will help us better serve our clients and we are excited about having him join our team!”  

He first learned basic surveying by taking night classes in the fundamentals of land surveying, boundary survey calculations and land survey law, taught by Dr. Richard Elgin who many consider to be the father of surveying in Missouri.  During his long career, Wendell has performed all types of surveying including boundary surveys, topographic surveys, Alta surveys, highway and road staking, sewer line staking, golf course staking and building staking.  He added, “I have done thousands of small and large surveys for hundreds of different customers including, business, developers, realtors, cities, counties, water, sewer and county road districts as well as the USACE.”

Brad Allbritton and Wendell look over some plans

Because of his vast experience in surveying in and around Table Rock and Bull Shoals lakes, many consider Mr. Beard to be one of the most knowledgeable surveyors on USACE lake boundaries in this region.  Well known developer Kandis Davis said, “Wendell has worked on over 400 miles of government fee take line for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Table Rock and Bull Shoals lakes.  Additionally, he handled over 200 miles of maintenance contracts through the Corps of Engineers.  Nobody knows this area like Wendell does.”

Wendell is a lifelong resident of Taney County and graduated from Hollister High School in 1973. His surveying experience has been almost exclusively in Taney, Stone, Barry, Ozark and Christian counties. Larry Gardner, owner of Midwest Surveyors and former Taney County Surveyor commented, “Wendell is the perfect employee for any business.  He is technically sound, works well with the public and knows this region like the back of his hand.  Wendell can handle any survey in any situation.”

One question Wendell keeps being asked is, “After 37 years why keep surveying?”  He responded, “I am healthy and love seeing this region progress.  Almost all our improvements and expansions start with a survey.  I have really become close friends with most of my customers.  I love the people in our area and helping them build the houses, businesses, utility lines and roads to accomplish their dreams is very satisfying to me.”

Schultz concluded by saying, “Knowledge of the local area is extremely important in surveying.  The chance to hire an experienced surveyor who has worked in almost every area of this region is a tremendous opportunity for SSE.  For year’s successful business, community and civic leaders have depended on Wendell for all their surveying needs.  We are thrilled to have him join us and keep his services available to all those in the Branson area.”  

     

SAVING MONEY ON FEMA FLOOD INSURANCE

SSE is saving residents money by offering:

Neighborhood pricing discounts
Minimal trip charges
Quick turnaround times 

LAKE OZARK MO- More and more residents in the Lake of the Ozarks region and all over Missouri are being required to prove that their home is not in a flood plain.  Many have lived in their homes for several years with no flooding problem but because the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA updated the lake area flood maps last year; residents are being required by insurers, lenders and FEMA to prove that they are not in the flood plain. 

Here is a sample FIRM map

          FEMA occasionally changes the floodplain boundaries because of things such as population growth or decline, levee changes, and infrastructure improvements.  Also better technology allowing for better mapping can change a FEMA map.  These changes can move a property owner previously out of the floodplain smack into the floodplain.   This is the case for many residents of Camden County, Missouri.  Planning Administrator, Chris Hall said, “Some portions of the lake have had their BFE (Base Flood Elevation) level increased and those areas are adversely affected by these changes.”

          This has caused the most trouble for lakefront homeowners.  SSE owner Stan Schultz added, “When an insurance provider or a bank views the new maps, they are almost guaranteed to deem lakefront property as part of the floodplain even though the property has never even been close to flooding.”

          Here is an example of how it might work on let’s say Mr. Smiths lakefront home.  Mr. Smith was dumbstruck last year when the bank that holds his mortgage sent a letter alerting him that he had to purchase flood insurance for his home on the lake. In 30-plus years, the lake has never has gotten close to the house, and insurance was never required before. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, updated its flood maps last year, and Mr. Smith’s home was declared at risk of flooding. Not only that, his house went from requiring no insurance to being in the highest possible flood-risk category.

          According to FEMA, the national average for the cost of flood insurance is $600 a year, but Mr. Smith pays $1,100 annually. During the 25-year life of his mortgage, he will have paid close to $30,000 to protect his high-and-dry home from floodwater that would have to be delivered to his house in buckets.

          Mr. Smith said, “If there had been a flood issue, I’d have walked away from this place and not bought it. I wanted nothing to do with a flood. Now I’ve gone from being in a ‘No problem area’ to being in the worst possible classification.” His insurance agent Mr. Jones, said he tried to help Mr. Smith do battle with the government, but the pair got nowhere. “Not only was his house put in a floodplain after all these years, but they put him in the highest category,” Agent Jones said. “Mr. Smith is in the same flood zone as someone who lives directly on the river — Zone A. “He’s probably paying four times more than he would if FEMA put him in Zone B. It seems crazy.”

          Many Missourians have dealt with this exact same scenario.  For some it was a nearby lake or an adjacent river and for others it may be an older levee.  For many it’s hard to understand!  Some say the new FEMA maps are merely moneymakers for the federal government, adding it’s almost “impossible” to get a residential floodplain status changed.

Missouri map showing affected counties

          But the folks at FEMA say that is just not true.  Laurie Smith-Kuypers, Natural Hazards Program Specialist in FEMA’s Chicago office, said “It’s not that big of a deal to ask the agency for reconsideration. All the homeowner has to do is hire a surveyor to produce an elevation certificate, proving his house is not in the floodplain.”

          Hiring a surveyor to come out and check the flood elevation can be expensive, plus there is no guarantee your home will be out of the floodplain.  Schultz and Summers owner Stan Schultz said “SSE developed a special flood certification process to help residents deal with the FEMA map changes.”  He added, “We tried to keep the costs as low as possible.  For a few hundred dollars we will come out and survey the property as well as turn all the paperwork into FEMA so the homeowner will get a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) that they can provide their lender or insurer.”  Schultz continued, “Another benefit we offer is the minimal trip charge.  Many times after our surveyors shoot the elevation they can determine if the home is not going to qualify for a LOMA.  We offer all our clients the option of stopping work and paying only a minimal trip charge.”

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 After visiting with SSE we contacted a few of their customers to see exactly how the service worked.   Philip Houghton from Gravois Mills, MO found out he was going to be required to purchase flood insurance a week before closing on his third floor condominium.  The quote for his insurance was estimated to be $3500.  He was told to purchase the flood insurance or forfeit the sale. 

Mr. Houghton called SSE and asked how much an elevation certificate would cost and could the whole process be completed before his closing.  He said, “I didn’t know if they could do it in time but amazingly they came out, did the survey and had the LOMA in less than 24 hours!”  In this case a homeowner was able to prove that the property was not in the flood zone allowing the lender to close the loan without forcing Mr. Houghton to purchase expensive flood insurance.  Houghton added, “The service I received from SSE was fast, professional, and fairly priced. They not only saved me money they kept my real estate transaction from falling apart.”

Another interesting story showing the difficulties the new FEMA maps have caused concerns.  Randall Carr and Susan Gepford from Stover, MO were tired of paying for flood insurance and hired Schultz and Summers Engineering to do a survey to see about obtaining a LOMA from FEMA and dropping their expensive flood insurance.  Susan said, “The surveyor came right out but unfortunately he informed us that our home was not going to qualify for a LOMA.  They asked us if we wanted to stop the process and pay the $100 trip charge or if we wanted to have them finish it up and see if we would come out in a cheaper flood zone.” She continued, “We told them to go ahead and finish it and even though we were still in the flood plain, our new elevation certificate lowered our flood insurance by $897!!”

          These two stories had happy endings but residents are still upset about all the extra hassle and costs the new FEMA maps have caused.  Smith-Kuypers said “The new maps were produced with the help of better topography, which was supplied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey. The maps do not include specific properties but show elevations across each community.”

Stan looking over a flood elevation survey

          Schultz concluded, “While dealing with the map changes is frustrating we are doing everything we can at SSE to provide realtors, lenders, insurers and homeowners with a professional process that can quickly determine if a property is in a floodplain at a very cost effective price.”  He added, “Neighborhood pricing discounts, minimal trip charges and a quick turnaround are just a few of the reasons we are doing more and more flood certifications each year.

STOPPING IN HAWAII BEFORE ARRIVING IN GUAM

Honolulu, Hawaii

By-Rodney Jetton

Stan and I drove up to St. Louis Monday evening because we had to catch a 6:00am flight to Hawaii.  I stayed up way to late working on a few letters and all too soon the 3:30 alarm went off and we were getting ready to head out on our trip to recon Guam and see if SSE should open up a branch office there.

You’re probably wondering why we are thinking about opening an office in Guam.  The short answer is because the Department of Defense (DOD) is moving the Marine base in Okinawa, Japan to Guam.  They have estimated it will cost about $14 billion to build the new base there.  The Japanese also want us to leave Guam and have pledged $6 billion to help pay for the move.  The move means there will be a lot of construction on Guam, but that doesn’t explain why a small civil engineering company from Missouri would consider moving there.

Here is the rest of the story.  Our work in New Orleans has been tremendously successful.  Stan went there, met with the local contractors, and quickly had a USACE validated construction testing lab operational.  In the beginning, most of the big firms would not hire SSE.  They had never worked with us before and they were afraid to trust something as important as testing to a small firm from Missouri. 

After several months CKY hired us for a little testing job and soon after that, our workload exploded.  Southern Services, Tetra Tech, Grillot Construction, Archer Western Contractors-The Walsh Group, WRCompass, The Shaw Group, Volkert, Odebrecht, and Integrated Pro Services were just a few of the major contractors who started requesting our services on their projects.  

The big contractors were not the only ones noticing the dependable testing services we were providing.  The USACE also took notice of our quality tests and accurate reports.  The Corps quickly awarded SSE a $5 million Blankest Purchase Agreement (BPA) to do Quality Assurance (QA) testing for them.  

Things were rapidly expanding for us in New Orleans.  Stan kept sending more of our Missouri employees down there to keep up with the workload and he also started looking for local qualified technicians who could join our team.  He had initially planned for 5 to 8 employees but within 18 months we had over 30 engineers and technicians providing both QC and QA tests in New Orleans.

During this time Tetra Tech was having some difficulty finding a surveyor to keep up with their timeline on one of their major projects.  They mentioned this to Stan and soon we had one of our Missouri crews helping them get the floodwalls and gates near the 17^th Street canal laid out for construction.  Our company had done construction staking on hundreds of lane-miles of Missouri highways as well as the largest privately owned airport in America, which is in Branson Missouri.  

Even though much of the surveying in New Orleans involved complicated sector gates and floodwalls, our survey crews jumped in and worked with the project managers to keep the jobs on schedule.  Once the word got out about our surveyors, it wasn’t long until we had as many as four survey crews going full time for several different contractors on some of the largest floodwalls and levees ever built in America.

 You’re probably saying, Rod this is an interesting story but what does New Orleans have to do with Guam?”  The short answer is everything for us.  Most of the contractors we have been helping in New Orleans are major corporations with worldwide operations.  They design and build things all over the globe.  For example Engineering News Record (ENR) ranked Kiewit as the 3^rd largest contractor in America, The Shaw Group is #7, and The Walsh Group is #12.  They also ranked Tetra Tech as the 5^th largest environmental engineering firm, AWC is # 20, and WRCompass is #49.   

Many of these companies are taking a serious look at going to Guam and a few of them are already there.  They started asking Stan to consider going to Guam.  So, we are studying the feasibility of setting up a testing lab to support the work to build a Marine Corps base on Guam.  

That’s why we woke up at 3:30 Tuesday morning to catch a plane to Hawaii.  We needed to stop in Hawaii because many of the contractors in Guam have their pacific headquarters in Hawaii and the Navy is headquartered here as well.  I’ll write more about our Hawaii meetings in my next post.  

Stan arriving at the Honolulu airport