Several months before coronavirus dominated headlines, Cincinnati's WCPO 9 undertook an investigation into problems at the Amazon air hub under construction near the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Blasting at the site, many believe, resulted in substantial damage to properties located outside the area for which permit holders were liable.

In February, WCPO 9 requested records from Kentucky's Energy and Environment Cabinet for, among other things, "all blast reports done by three blasting permit holders at the Amazon air hub site."

WCPO received some responsive records but no blast reports.

The reason?

"We can look at them for compliance," Cabinet officials explained, "*and we have*, but they remain the property of the blasting companies."

It's unlikely that WCPO — which regularly employs Kentucky's open records law for reporting purposes — will accept this response.

The Cabinet acknowledges use and possession of the blast reports "for compliance." Although generated by and for the blasting companies, the blast reports are public records under Kentucky's open records law because they were, by the Cabinet's own admission, "prepared, owned, *used,* *in the possession of* or retained by a public agency."

Cabinet officials offer no legal justification for the position that the blast reports "remain the property of the blasting companies."

Compliance monitoring records, within the Cabinet, generally, have no access restrictions and must be retained — according to the Cabinet's records retention schedule — for 12 years.

https://kdla.ky.gov/records/recretentionschedules/Documents/State%20Rec…

Getting back to basics after weeks of dealing with nearly insurmountable issues, we remind the Cabinet that it's position does not appear to hold water.

A record of a permitted entity that is submitted to a public agency for *use* in verifying compliance is a public record as defined in the open records law.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=45231

Absent a substantially better legal justification for denial than the one given by the Cabinet in its denial, the requested blast reports are accessible to WCPO under the open records law.

The Cabinet should reconsider its position and make the blast reports available to WCPO and to the public — especially those whose property was damaged in the process of constructing the Amazon air hub.

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, we celebrate the importance of our open governments laws and the victories, great and small, that lie ahead.