Tafti

*893 Opinion

Farshad A. Tafti (appellant), an individual doing business as Kaweah General Store, appeals from a judgment denying his petition for a writ of mandate in which he challenged the validity of $1,148,200 in civil penalties imposed against him by the County of Tulare and Tulare County division of environmental health services (collectively referred to as respondent). The civil penalties were imposed following an administrative hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ), whose findings were adopted by respondent, and were based on alleged violations by appellant of laws relating to underground gasoline storage tanks. Prior to the hearing, respondent had issued an enforcement order determining that appellant committed certain violations and owed civil penalties of $138,824. Appellant requested an appeal hearing after being notified by respondent that such a hearing would be an opportunity to challenge the enforcement order. When the hearing resulted in a massive increase of over $1 million in the total amount of civil penalties, appellant appealed. His appeal raises issues of notice, fairness, due process and statutory authority, among others. We conclude that under…