Mark Nechodom, the director of the California Department of Conservation, which oversees  the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), resigned Thursday in a one-paragraph letter to Resource Secretary John Laird which did not give a reason for his departure.

During his tenure, DOGGR has been criticized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for allowing oil producers to drill of oilfield wastewater disposal wells into federally protected aquifers.

His resignation comes only days after he was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by a group of Kern County Farmers who allege DOGGR was lax in its regulation of disposal wells.

Dr. Nechodom was appointed to the DOC by Gov. Jerry Brown in January of 2012.

Prior to his appointment as DOC Director, Dr. Nechodom was a Senior Policy Advisor at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and served as Director of the Office of Environmental Markets at USDA. He was a Senior Climate Science Policy Advisor to the Chief of the US Forest Service and worked on federal greenhouse gas legislation in Washington, DC. He holds a PhD in political science and environmental policy from the University of California at Santa Cruz.