Nonprofit sues WVU over FOIA

MORGANTOWN — Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a nonprofit, filed a lawsuit in Monongalia County Circuit Court, asking the court to order WVU to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The suit, filed June 21, requests the court declare WVU in violation of FOIA, order WVU to immediately provide the requested records and pay attorney fees and court costs.
In November 2017, the organization sent WVU a FOIA requesting four types of records generated between Jan. 16, 2017, and Nov. 10, 2017:
— Any memoranda of understanding or agreements between any West Virginia state officer, agency or department and China Energy Investment Corp. or its representatives;
— Any list of energy, infrastructure or industrial projects provided to China Energy Investment Corp. by any West Virginia state officer, agency or department
— Any documents, including e-mails, that contained both of the terms “China” and “energy,” “China and “coal,” or “China” and “gas.”
— Any attachments or exhibits to any of the records described above.
The university acknowledged the request on Dec. 5, 2017, but refused to provide any records requested, the suit stated.
WVU does not normally comment on pending litigation, but spokesperson John Bolt said that WVU did comply with their request and pointed out language in its response to the first half of the request: “West Virginia University is not a signatory to the requested agreement and, as such, it is not the custodian of this agreement. Accordingly, a request for these records would be more appropriately directed to the West Virginia Department of Commerce.”
In its response, WVU said the terms requested in part three of the request returned more than 15,000 potentially responsive emails. It denied the FOIA because the number of documents created an unreasonably high burden or expense to the university.
Bolt said the university offered to help the nonprofit narrow the scope of its request to a more manageable size, however there was no response to the offer until the lawsuit.
“Thus, if you wish to pursue this matter further in the future please submit another FOIA request and state with greater specificity the information being requested such that an unreasonable effort is not required to review it, and process the volume of potentially responsive records,” WVU’s response stated.
Appalachian Mountain Advocates did not return calls from The Dominion Post asking for a comment on the lawsuit.