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Pub. Resources Code, § 3255 · Article 4.2. Hazardous Wells and Facilities

Pub. Resources Code, § 3255

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this division, the supervisor may order to be carried out, or may undertake, any of the following operations, as applicable, on any property in the vicinity of which, or on which, is located any well or facility that the supervisor determines to be a hazardous well, an idle-deserted well, a hazardous facility, or a deserted facility:

(1) Any inspection or tests necessary to determine what action, if any, would be appropriate to effectuate the purpose of this article.

(2) The abandonment of the well.

(3) The reabandonment of the well.

(4) The redrilling and production of an existing well for purposes of remedying, mitigating, minimizing, or eliminating danger to life, health, and natural resources.

(5) The drilling and production of a well for purposes of remedying, mitigating, minimizing, or eliminating danger to life, health, and natural resources.

(6) The decommissioning of hazardous or deserted facilities.

(7) Any other remedy or oilfield operation calculated to effectuate the purpose of this article.

(b) If, pursuant to this article, the supervisor orders that any operation be carried out with respect to a hazardous well, an idle-deserted well, a hazardous facility, or a deserted facility and that operation will, by virtue of the physical occupation or destruction of all or any part of the property or the extraction of oil or gas from the property, substantially interfere with the enjoyment of the property, the supervisor may acquire, as provided in Section 3256, a minimal interest in the property as is necessary to carry out the operation. No acquisition may be made pursuant to this subdivision unless the supervisor finds and determines that the public benefits to be derived therefrom in remedying, mitigating, minimizing, or eliminating danger to life, health, and natural resources will exceed the cost of the acquisition, irrespective of the manner in which the acquisition is to be funded.

(c) An order of the supervisor to carry out any of the operations listed in subdivision (a) may be appealed by the owner of the property pursuant to Article 6 (commencing with Section 3350), except that in the case of an emergency no stay of the supervisor’s order shall accompany the appeal.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2017, Ch. 652, Sec. 9. (SB 724) Effective January 1, 2018.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PRC&sectionNum=3255.
Text hash
sha256 3956060bf0117e9c48a7ac3574c7397261e0a6c70742d5d8db121f0652033ba5
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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