KERN COUNTY AIR POLLUTION CONTROL DISTRICT

RULE 103 - CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
(Adopted 4/18/72, Amended 8/31/76, 5/2/96)

I. Public Records

All information, analyses, plans, or specifications that disclose the nature, extent quantity, or degree of air contaminants or other pollution which any article, machine, equipment, or other contrivance will produce, which any air pollution control district or any other state or local agency or district requires any applicant to provide before such applicant builds, erects, alters, replaces, operates, sells, rents, or uses such article, machine, equipment, or other contrivance, are public records.

All air and other pollution monitoring data, including data compiled from stationary sources, are public records.

II. Confidential Information

Trade secrets are not public records under this Rule. Trade secrets may include, but are not limited to, any formula, plan, pattern, process tool, mechanism, compound, procedure, production data, or compilation of information which is not patented, which is known only to certain individuals within a commercial concern who are using it to fabricate, produce, or compound an article of trade or a service having commercial value and which gives its user an opportunity to obtain a business advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.

All air pollution emission data, including those emission data which constitute trade secrets, as defined in the above paragraph, are public records. Data used to calculate emission data are not emission data for the purpose of this subdivision and data which constitute trade secrets and which are used to calculate emission data are not public records.

III. Requests For Confidentiality

Any person furnishing any records may label as "trade secret" any part of those records which are entitled to confidentiality. Written justification for the "trade secret" designation shall be furnished with the records so designated and the designation shall be public record. The justification shall be as detailed as possible without disclosing the trade secret; the person may submit additional information to support the justification, which information, upon request, will be kept confidential in the same manner as the record sought to be protected.

Upon the receipt of an (Application for "Confidential" Classification of Source Data) the Air Pollution Control Officer shall, within ten (10) working days, notify the applicant of his ruling. In cases of rejection, the Air Pollution Control Officer shall promptly notify the person making the justification, in writing, that the records in question shall, within twenty-one (21) days be subject to public inspection unless a justification is received and accepted.