BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 1146
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator S. Joseph Simitian, Chairman
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 1146
AUTHOR: Pavley
AMENDED: April 9, 2012
FISCAL: Yes HEARING DATE: April 23, 2012
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:
Rachel Wagoner
SUBJECT : WELL REPORTS
SUMMARY :
Existing law:
1) Requires a person who digs, bores, or drills a water
well, cathodic protection well, or a monitoring well, or
abandons or destroys a well, or deepens or reperforates a
well, to file a report of completion with the Department of
Water Resources (DWR). (Water Code �13751).
2) Prohibits the above report from being made available to
the public, except under certain circumstances. (�13752).
This bill :
1) Requires, rather than prohibits, well logs be made available
to the public. (�13752(a)).
2) Requires a person requesting a report to do so on a form
identifying the name and address of the requestor, and the
reason for the request. (�13752(d)(1)).
3) Requires the release of the well logs to comply with the
privacy and other provisions of the Information Practices Act.
(�13752(c)(2)).
4) Requires a disclosure statement regarding the appropriate use
of the data. (�13752(b)).
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5) Authorizes DWR to charge a fee for providing the well logs.
(�13752(c)(1)).
COMMENTS :
1) Purpose of Bill . According to the author, every time a
water well is drilled, the driller is required by law to
provide DWR a well completion report with the State of
California for each well drilled. The author argues that
reports contain critical information for groundwater
managers, consulting hydrologists, academics, and others
interested in the geologic and hydrologic characteristics of
groundwater basins. The author states that unfortunately,
those who would benefit from this information cannot have
access to it; farmers can't know how deep they need to drill
their wells, academics cannot develop sophisticated maps and
models without the sponsorship of the government, and local
community activists cannot gain the information they need to
better protect drinking water quality of disadvantaged
communities.
The author states that the Governor directed DWR to work
with the author "to ensure responsible public access to
well logs." SB 1146 is the result of those negotiations
with DWR, along with the Department of Health Services
(DHS) and CalEMA, which is California's official homeland
security agency. According to the author SB 1146 addresses
and resolves the various security concerns raised by DHS
and CalEMA.
2) Background . In 1949, to help prevent groundwater
pollution caused by improperly constructed water wells, the
California Legislature first required well drillers to file
a well completion report with the State of California for
each well drilled.
Well completion reports (well logs) are a record of the
drilling and construction of the well. Well logs provide
the record necessary to demonstrate that the well was
properly constructed, modified, or decommissioned, and
further provides the necessary construction detail should
the well need to be modified at some later date. They
include, among other things, the location of the well, the
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depth of the well, the type of soils encountered at each
elevation of drilling, and depth to water.
In 1965, the Legislature declared that "the people of the
state have a primary interest in the location, construction,
maintenance, abandonment, and destruction of water wells,
which activities directly affect the quality and purity of
underground waters." In doing so, the Legislature expanded
the well drilling laws to: a) authorize DWR to establish
regulations governing the proper construction of water
wells, b) require all well completion reports be filed with
DWR, and c) restrict access to those reports to government
agencies. The legislative record does not give any insight
as to why the logs were made confidential.
No other western state restricts access to well logs as in
California. In fact, most western states provide Internet
access to well logs.
In the case of oil or gas wells in California, every time a
well is drilled, the driller must provide a copy of the well
log to the Department of Conservation. Those logs are
deemed public records for purposes of the California Public
Records Act. (There are exceptions. Logs for exploratory
wells, for example, are considered confidential for a
specific period of time.) The Department of Conservation
provides public access to those logs through a GIS map on
the Internet.
3) What Do Other Water Agencies Do ? A review of urban water
management plans and capital improvement plans shows that
over 160 water agencies have published the location of their
wells, usually on maps, but sometimes the actual addresses.
This represents locations of over 2,200 water system wells,
of which the author's staff has located 96% through online
maps.
Adjudicated groundwater basins have court-appointed
watermasters, a number of whom have published maps showing
the location of production wells within their jurisdiction.
For example, the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster
published a fairly detailed 2008 map showing the location of
99 active production wells.
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The drilling of a new water system well is usually a project
subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
CEQA, among other things, requires the disclosure of the
location of the project. A review of CEQA Clearinghouse's
online database shows the location of over 70 wells.
4) What Would The Fee Cover ? It is not clear how large the
fee for a copy of a well log would be. However, the fee
would likely include a share of the following: a) costs to
create and maintain a copy of the log that redacts personal
information pursuant to the Information Practices Act of
1977; b) costs of duplicating the redacted well log; c)
costs to develop and disseminate the disclosure statement
regarding the appropriate use of the data; and d) costs to
develop and maintain the form identifying the name and
address of the requestor, and the reason for the request and
any additional administrative costs associated with
implementing this bill.
5) Public Health Benefit . As the State of California
struggles to address contamination of drinking water and
other water supplies across the state, it presents an
immense hurdle if the state does not have comprehensive
information about the location of groundwater supplies. SB
1146 assists in providing necessary information as state
regulators attempt to implement statewide cleanup policies
and efforts.
6) Arguments in opposition . According to the City of
Lakewood, well reports contain detailed information not
otherwise available to the public. Providing the
information could result in devastating consequences to the
health and safety of people in this state.
The opposition argues that SB 1146 opens up the floodgates
to everyone and anyone who requests the reports, regardless
of qualifications and reason.
The opposition believes that SB 1146 contradicts existing
state and federal polices and would increase safety risks to
public water supplies.
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7) Previous legislation . SB 263 (Pavley) of 2011 would have
made well completion reports available to the public. To
address the opposition's concerns, the bill was amended on
the Assembly floor to restrict access to persons with
specific qualifications and added penalty provisions for
disclosing information. The Governor vetoed that bill
because of those provisions, and directed DWR to work with
the author "to ensure responsible public access to well
logs."
SOURCE : Senator Pavley
SUPPORT : California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Clean Water Action
Community Water Center
East Bay Municipal Utility District
Geo Consultants, Inc.
Groundwater Resources Association
Planning and Conservation League
Sierra Club California
Sonoma County Water Agency
The Nature Conservancy
OPPOSITION : California Groundwater Association
California Police Chiefs Association
City of Lakewood
City of Torrance
Desert Water Agency
East Valley Water District
Orchard Dale Water District
Rowland Water District
San Gabriel Valley Water Association
Valley Ag Water Coalition