On July 20, 2013, the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources amended its reporting and disclosure requirements for hydraulic fracturing stimulation operations. 39 La. Reg. 1824 (July 20, 2013). The amendment does not significantly alter the substance of the reporting requirements, but it imposes a new twenty-day reporting deadline (required by a 2012 statutory amendment). See La. Rev. Stat. § 30:4. The rule requires operators to report the types and volumes of hydraulic fracturing fluid used, the additives used, the chemical ingredients of the hydraulic fracturing fluid, and the concentrations of those chemical ingredients. Specifically, the new reporting deadline requires operators to report within twenty days from the date that hydraulic fracturing stimulation operations are completed. Before the amendment, the regulation did not specify a reporting deadline. The amendment is important due to the statutory penalties associated with noncompliance. Under La. Rev. Stat. § 30:18, violators of the rule are subject to mandatory civil penalties of “not more than five thousand dollars a day for each day of violation and for each act of violation.”
