Bill > SB1081

This bill modifies the definition of a "publicly owned treatment works serving a small community" to include those serving a community of 3,000 residents or less as a factor in determining financial hardship, which can allow such facilities to use equivalent penalty amounts for compliance projects instead of paying mandatory minimum penalties for certain waste discharge violations. Publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) are facilities owned by a municipality or other public entity that treat wastewater before discharging it. Mandatory minimum penalties are fines that must be assessed for serious or repeated violations of waste discharge requirements, which are rules set by the State Water Resources Control Board and regional water quality control boards to protect water quality. The existing law already allows POTWs serving small communities with financial hardship to redirect these penalty funds towards projects that improve their compliance, and this bill expands the criteria for what constitutes a "small community" for this exception.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1081