January 13, 2012

Ms. Jessica Kohlrenken

Attorney

Texas Water Development Board

P.O. Box 13231

Austin, Texas 78711-3231

OR2012-00728

Dear Ms. Kohlrenken:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 443194.

The Texas Water Development Board received a request for information contained on a specified DVD. You state that some of the requested information has been released. You claim that the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.101 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted information.

Section 552.101 of the Government Code excepts from disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." Gov't Code § 552.101. This exception encompasses information that other statutes make confidential. You claim section 552.101 in conjunction with section 418.181 of the Government Code. Sections 418.176 through 418.182 were added to chapter 418 of the Government Code as part of the Texas Homeland Security Act. Section 418.181 provides as follows:

Those documents or portions of documents in the possession of a governmental entity are confidential if they identify the technical details of particular vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure to an act of terrorism.

Id. § 418.181; see generally id. § 421.001 (defining critical infrastructure to include "all public or private assets, systems, and functions vital to the security, governance, public health and safety, and functions vital to the state or the nation"). The fact that information may pertain to public or private infrastructure does not make the information per se confidential under the Texas Homeland Security Act. See Open Records Decision No. 649 at 3 (1996) (language of confidentiality provision controls scope of its protection). Furthermore, the mere recitation of a statute's key terms is not sufficient to demonstrate the applicability of the claimed provision. As with any exception to disclosure, a claim under section 418.181 must be accompanied by an adequate explanation of how the responsive records fall within the scope of the claimed provision. See Gov't Code § 552.301(e)(1)(A) (governmental body must explain how claimed exception to disclosure applies).

You assert, and we agree, that dams and reservoirs are critical infrastructure for purposes of section 421.001 of the Government Code. You explain that the submitted information consists of engineering drawings and plans for several dams and reservoirs. You contend that the submitted information depicts technical details of particular vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure. You argue that the release of this information would expose the dams and reservoirs to possible acts of terrorism by revealing where the most damage could be inflicted and thereby endanger public health and safety. Based on your representations and our review of the information at issue, we conclude that the submitted information is confidential under section 418.181 of the Government Code and must be withheld from the requestor on that basis under section 552.101 of the Government Code.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Miles

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

JM/em

Ref: ID# 443194

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

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