U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Las Vegas Wash
Las Vegas, Nevada
flood control channels and structures to control the serious flooding problems in the Las Vegas area. Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc. started work on March 1, 1993, and provided continuous services until December of 2001 at which point the 16th and final modification to the contract had been completed.
The Vegas Wash project consisted of approximately 381 stereo models, 362 horizontal and vertical control monuments, and 90 vertical only control monuments. All aerial photography was completed within two weeks of Notice to Proceed and all field surveys were completed within three to four weeks of Notice to Proceed on each modification, including the setting of the final permanent control monuments (brass cap and concrete). GPS was used to establish all horizontal aerial mapping control. At the request of the Corps of Engineers' Chief Surveyor, we established vertical control using precise
digital leveling. This methodology continued until about 1997, at which point, based on our previous four years of success deriving nearly identical results using GPS, the Corps allowed us to modify the scope of work to perform all positioning, horizontal and vertical, using GPS alone.
All deadlines and Corps standards were met and/or exceeded on this project, which spanned 8 years for the initial contract and 16 modifications over the lifetime of the project.
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Colorado River Aqueduct Canal
Sections Aerial Control
JFA set and controlled 139 aerial control targets along the Colorado River Aqueduct for this particular contract. The area of work covered approximately 32 miles of the canal sections of the aqueduct throughout southern California. Our control stretched from Coxcomb Tunnel northerly, to Iron Mountain Tunnel and from Iron Mountain Pumping Plant southerly and easterly, to approximately five (5) miles west of the town of Rice. These targets were set and controlled using Trimble 4000SSi GPS receivers in a fast static network configuration. All targets were retrieved after completion and acceptance of the aerial photography, one set of contact prints was made as per MWD aerial control procedures, and a complete set of MWD field notes were delivered in both hard copy and digital format.
JFA was contracted to set and control an additional 25 targets at a later date. These additional targets were located in extremely rough terrain and environmentally sensitive areas. Consequently, a helicopter was used in order to avoid any ground disturbance that would have been caused by standard 4-wheel drive survey vehicles. Utilizing a helicopter-based survey crew also optimized the efficiency and productivity of the project.
City of Irvine, California
Over the past 27 years, Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc., has provided the City of Irvine, California, with countless services including checking of Subdivision Maps, both digital and hard copy, checking of lot line adjustments, checking of legal descriptions and exhibits, indexing of centerline ties, boundary surveys, control surveys, and deformation/subsidence surveys.
In 1980, Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc., as City Surveyor for the City of Irvine, designed and implemented a city-wide geodetic control network for the City. This network included 227 stations and was completed prior to the advent of GPS equipment. The survey was performed with Wild T-2 Theodolites and Electronic Distance Measuring equipment and was tied to and adjusted to the then current North American Datum of 1927 (NAD27). During the intervening years, we have added both conventional survey measurements from innumerable projects throughout the City as well as GPS baseline vectors measured for various control projects within the City area, both for the City and for other agencies. The network has been tied to the California High Precision Geodetic Network (HPGN) and it has been readjusted to the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83) (1991.35 Epoch). This adjustment now entails nearly 6500 observations and positions over 920 stations throughout the City and grows on a steady basis as we continue to serve the Surveying needs of this City. All of the observations of which this network consists are contained in a “live” adjustment file that has now seen two different “datums” and will continue to serve the City on any future datums as may be necessary, by simply changing the coordinates of the “fixed” control points in the adjustment to the new datum, followed by a 30 second readjustment.
In 1988, Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc. began providing subsidence monitoring se
rvices for the City of Irvine involving a failing “valley fill” within the City. This project consisted of $245,000 of precise monitoring surveys over a seven-year period. Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee (FGCS) First Order, Class II leveling procedures and high precision Sinco Tilt Meters were used to monitor the subsidence.
Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc. has provided construction surveying services on public works projects in the City including several bridges and numerous streets. These include Alton, including the Highway 73 overpass, Barranca, including the Interstate 5 overpass, Harvard, Irvine, Irvine Center, Jamboree, Main, including the Interstate 405 overpass, Portola, Sand Canyon, and Technology, as well as many others throughout the city.
Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc. was contracted by the National Geodetic Survey, through Dewberry & Davis of Arlington, Virginia to perform a survey and report to support the National Height Modernization Study. Our firm was selected due to our extensive experience and expertise in both the precise leveling and geodetic GPS fields.
The Project consisted of determining conventional leveling derived orthometric heights (NAVD88) on 20 Survey monuments along a 20 mile reach of the Northern California Aqueduct between Panoche Road and just north of Nees Avenue in western Fresno County, California, as well as determining GPS derived orthometric heights (using GEOID96) on 14 of these same monuments, using NGS 2-cm guidelines detailed in NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NGS-58.
In support of the National Height Modernization Study, the NGS also requested that our firm provide a report on an ongoing project in the Los Banos, California area. On an annual basis, our firm perfoms GPS subsidence monitoring along the Outside and Delta-Mendota Canals using the NGS 5-cm guidelines. In addition to the annual GPS observations, precise leveling observations were performed the first year and are performed in areas where additional accuracy is determined to be necessary on a yearly basis.
City of Irwindale, California
Over the past 25 years, Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc. has provided the City of Irwindale, California, with countless services including checking of Subdivision maps, both digital and hard copy, checking of lot line adjustments, checking of legal descriptions and exhibits, indexing of centerline ties, boundary surveys, centerline alignment surveys, control surveys, and deformation surveys. In addition, our firm has been responsible for all preliminary and construction surveys for the City from 1975 to 1998. Our firm is also responsible for legal descriptions and exhibit plats for all street dedications, right-of-way acquisitions and/or right-of-way dispositions. The firm's president, Roger A. Frank, currently serves as the official City Surveyor for the City of Irwindale.
In 1996, Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc. provided aerial control, aerial mapping, hydrographic and topographic surveys of several gravel quarries throughout the City of Irwindale. This project included $81,000 of services including establishing aerial control using static GPS methods, hydrographic surveys using sonar and Real Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS methods, and providing aerial photogrammetric mapping.
From 1986 to 1987, our firm was contracted to survey, monument, and file a Record of Survey on every residential lot in the City of Irwindale. In 1987, our firm located and marked the city limit line at all road crossings throughout the City.
Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc. has provided construction surveying services on public works projects including the construction or reconstruction of nearly every street in the City of Irwindale, California. These streets include Allen Drive, Arrow Highway, Azusa Canyon, Foothill Boulevard, Live Oak Avenue, Los Angeles Street, Myrtle Avenue, Peck Road, and Vincent Avenue as well as many others throughout the City.
Our firm provided the City of Irwindale, California, with design, subdivision, and construction staking services for two residential developments in which the City's Redevelopment Agency was subdividing property for local residential use.
Aerial / Orthophotography Control and Airborne GPS Control
Johnson-Frank has provided aerial control services for thousands of projects over our 27-year history. Many of these projects have been citywide mapping and orthophotography projects including the cities of Arcadia, Burbank, Fontana, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Loma Linda, Newport Beach, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Santa Monica, Seal Beach, and Universal Studios, among numerous others. Of the projects listed above, the Cities of Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Corona, and Fountain Valley included the use of Airborne GPS (AGPS) control. This methodology positions the aircraft at the instant of photo exposure and reduces the number of ground control necessary, thereby reducing the overall cost of the project. Another recent project also utilized this technology, it included 2,573 AGPS controlled photo exposures and 242 ground control stations. This project was performed for the San Diego County Water Authority, the Cities of Coronado, Chula Vista, Oceanside, and Encinitas and covered most of San Diego County.
Orange County Surveyor's Office
Our firm has served as an on-call survey contractor for the County Surveyor's Office on a recurring basis since Johnson-Frank's founding in 1975. Surveying services include construction staking, monumentation, boundary surveys, geodetic control, scour study surveys, subdivision map checking and any other services that might be deemed necessary by the County Surveyor.
In 1998, our firm provided creek sediment measurement surveys along Serrano Creek in central Orange County for the Orange County's Surveyor's Office. The project involved cross-sectioning the creek bed at regular intervals to determine the volume of the creek for use in flood control planning.
In 1996, our firm was selected to monument 46 boundary stations along Trabuco Creek in Southern Orange County for the County Surveyor's Office. The contract called for the stations to be monumented within 0.02 feet (0.6cm) of the locations shown on the County Surveyors' Record of Survey. In order to meet these specifications, we developed a unique system of measurement using Real Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS, static GPS, and conventional surveying instrumentation. The system was developed using a least squares pre-analysis of the measurement technique to assure a successful project before the first measurement was made.
Our firm has also been contracted by the County of Orange to check Record of Survey maps prepared by in-house County personnel as well as to check excess subdivision maps to assist the county with its' backlog. Johnson-Frank & Associates was to check the maps for correct boundary determination and compliance with all applicable state and local laws.
repair of three Jet Blue parking aprons at Long Beach Airport. This work was performed on extremely short notice due to the emergency nature of the repairs required. Topographic measurements were made using robotic reflectorless total station technology to measure the parking pads in between departures and arrivals. This required close coordination with airport staff and field personnel in order to complete the survey in a timely and safe manner. This survey was of a highly accurate nature as design plans were to pre-cast concrete slabs based on our survey at a remote location and then set them in place overnight so as to not interfere with daytime airport operations.
During the month of February 2003, Johnson-Frank performed full ground survey topographic mapping of Long Beach Airport's main runway, Runway 30-12. This survey covered the entire length of the nearly 10,200 foot paved runway and extended beyond the limits of pavement to the perimeter fence on the northwest and 1200 feet past the edge of pavement to the southeast. The survey also included numerous parallel and crossing taxiways and in general covered 500 feet to either side of the centerline of the runway, an average survey width of 1000 feet. The survey included all field identifiable features including all airport lighting, storm drainage features, utilities, and invert elevations of all applicable storm drainage and sewage facilities. In addition, our crews located all potholes and boreholes performed by geotechnical subconsultants as well as all potholes performed by the underground utility verification subconsultants. Our crews also surveyed all paint markings laid out by the underground utility locating services employed during the project. The work was performed under extremely tight time constraints utilizing as many as 4 crews at once, all working at night so as to not interfere with daytime airport operations. In all, the survey included nearly 20,000 field located survey points and features, all of which met extremely high accuracy standards. The survey was to be accurate enough to support 0.10-foot contours on all paved surface. This level of accuracy required digital leveling through all control points and limited distances at which topographic measurement could be taken, which in turn required numerous additional control points and instrument setups versus standard topographic data collection procedures. In addition to the topographic mapping services, as part of the overall project, we were tasked with recovering and re-establishing the airports centerline control for the main runway as well as all parallel and crossing taxiways and runways. This included 14 main airport control points. These monuments were positioned using first order GPS techniques and tied to the National Spatial Reference System.
[About Johnson-Frank] [Our Experienced Staff] [Services] [Projects] [Articles] [Contact Us]
All Rights Reserved, Johnson-Frank & Associates, Inc.
