Opinion ID: 77938
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Affidavit of Randy Dominy and Deposition of Jennifer Pearce

Text: The EPA's primary testimony regarding the searches incident to the Tribe's February and June FOIA requests arose from two sources. First, the EPA relied on the affidavit of Randy Dominy, the current Region 4 Chief of the EPA FOIA and Records Services Division. Dominy, who was the representative designated by the EPA to demonstrate that the search was adequate in response to the magistrate judge's July 15, 2005 discovery order, testified concerning the scope and process of EPA FOIA searches in general and the February and June FOIA searches in particular. Second, the EPA proffered the deposition testimony of Region 4 Records Section FOIA specialist Jennifer Pearce, to whom the Tribe's requests were routed when they came through the Records Section. According to Dominy, with respect to the February request, Pearce contacted Mancusi-Ungaro, an EPA attorney adviser on Everglades water issues, and Harper, an environmental scientist who had reviewed State of Florida water quality standards, and asked them to search for records responsive to the Tribe's FOIA request and to identify other personnel who would also have responsive records. Additional EPA Region 4 employees conducted searches of their files, including. Fritz Wagener and Gail Mitchell. Moreover, documents were produced by Jim Keating from EPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. After a number of additional personnel were identified as persons who may also have responsive documents (sixteen in all), those EPA employees were provided with the Tribe's February FOIA request and asked to search all correspondence, electronic transmissions, draft documents, briefing materials, and other relevant materials in any hard copy and electronic files to which they had access. Dominy also averred that a similar search was performed for the supplemental June FOIA request.