(See pdf below)
In its increasingly zealous pursuit of scouring the California oil drilling world for every particle of remotely meaningful data before writing an ordinance, City Hall has dispatched a public records request to DOGGR, the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.
As an analogue to last Tuesday’s lengthy information request to Plains Exploration & Production Co., on the same day City Atty. Carol Schwab directed the city’s environmental counsel to obtain copies of DOGGR communications regarding the Inglewood Oil Field.
While a response is anticipated today from PXP, the state agency has 10 to 14 days from last Tuesday to reply, according to the California Public Records Act.
Mayor Andy Weissman said that if City Hall merely had sent a polite request to the faceless department, “I suspect there was concern it would go onto their stack of Things to Do – without any urgency.
“At least this way there is a statutory period in which a reply, in one form or another, is necessary.
“We are asking for documentation and information. We don’t know if it exists or, if it does, how voluminous it may be.”
While it was the City Council meeting on July 2 that sparked last week’s inquiry to PXP, the DOGGR letter evidently stems from the June 12 workshop that DOGGR sponsored in Council Chambers.
“We need this information,” Mr. Weissman said, “to be thorough in our analysis of what the appropriate protections are” in the new drilling ordinance due in several months.
From PXP, City Hall is seeking specific and detailed information about the drilling company’s activities.
From DOGGR, “there may be documentation, information, communication at the state level that differs from the technical type of information we are asking of PXP,” Mr. Weissman said.
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