Wells: reports: public availability.

(1) Existing law 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. Existing law prohibits those reports from being made available to the public, except to governmental agencies for use in making studies, to any person who obtains a written authorization from the owner of the well, and to a person performing an environmental cleanup study under certain circumstances. This bill would remove the exception for persons performing an environmental cleanup study, and would additionally authorize the department to make the reports available to academics affiliated with institutions of postsecondary education for specified purposes and to geologists, geophysicists, hydrologists, civil engineers, and persons possessing a specified well contractor's license. The bill would require the department to provide a specified disclaimer when providing the reports to the public. The bill would require the department to require a person seeking a report to identify the intended use of the report. The bill would prohibit specified persons receiving the report pursuant to these provisions from disclosing the exact location of a well in the report; providing the report to other persons or entities not involved in the conduct of a study; and utilizing the report, or information or data in the report, for the sale, resale, solicitation, or advertisement for sales or services. The bill would provide that knowingly violating this prohibition would be a misdemeanor that would be punishable, upon conviction, by a fine, by imprisonment in the county jail, or by both, as specified. By creating a new crime, this bill would establish a state-mandated local program. (2) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.