Farry v. King

CRAIG, J.

The petitioner, an applicant for a permit to drill for petroleum upon tide lands in Santa Barbara County, seeks a writ of mandate directing the Director of Finance and Register of Lands to vacate as to his application an official declaration defining the boundaries of an oil-field wherein the petitioner demands such permit to prospect.

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In September, 1928, the Surveyor-General and Register of the state land office made an order and prepared a map determining the exterior “boundary lines of the Elwood Oil Field (in so far as State lands fall therein) as fixed under sec. 18, chap. 303, Stats, of Cal., 1921”. Said lines commence one mile westerly from the city of Santa Barbara, extend at right angles three miles out to sea, thence westerly parallel with the shore to a point twenty-four miles distant, and thence shoreward. Such action was preceded and prompted by the successful location and development of a large producing well within said area. Thereafter, and in October, 1928, the petitioner posted the statutory notice, and filed in the office of the surveyor-general his application for a permit to prospect for oil and gas within the aforesaid boundaries, which application was rejected.

Said chapter 303 of the Statutes of 1921 (Stats. 1921, p. 404), consisted of an act to reserve all minerals in state lands, to provide for examination, classification and report on their mineral character, and for the granting of permits and leases to prospect for minerals thereon. This statute has since been superseded by legislation not here involved. At the times above mentioned, and when in force, the statute provided that “the surveyor-general may from time to time classify any or all state land for its different possible values and uses, and when he deems it advisable, may require the state mineralogist, director of agriculture or other organization, agency or institution of the state government to make such classification”. Section 4 thereof provided, in part: “The surveyor-general is hereby authorized, upon the payment to him of fifty cents per acre, . . . and under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, to grant to any person or association of persons, ... a prospecting permit, which shall give the exclusive right, for a period not exceeding two years, to prospect for oil or gas, upon not exceeding six hundred forty acres of land wherein such deposits of oil or gas belong to the state and are not within any known geological structure of a producing oil or gas field.” By section 8 of said act it was provided: “All unappropriated deposits of oil or gas situated