Why is BLM still using a Lots and Tracts system that doesn't fit with the national grid?
The BLM is the official maintainer and ultimate authority for the Public Land Survey System in the United States including government lots and tracts. Some of these documents are hundreds of years old and many exist as sketches and field notes. The oil and gas industry has used a version of this data drafted onto the USGS topographic maps and the confusion relates to the differences between the two data sources. The USGS has the only consistent seamless nationwide data available and it too ultimate derives from BLM records.


