The California Water Boards' Annual Performance Report - Fiscal Year 2011-12

MEASUREMENTS  - Data last updated on: 

WHAT THE MEASURE IS SHOWING

During fiscal year 2011-2012 a significant number of Administrative Civil Liability actions were issued under all programs in part as the result of the recently created Office of Enforcement. This large number of actions assessed a significant amount in penalty liability of which approximately 44% has thus far been resolved. Of the liability amount thus far resolved, 14% contributed to approved compliance and supplemental environmental projects and 86% was collected as direct payments into the Cleanup and Abatement Account or into the Waste Discharge Permit Fund. It also significant to point out the large number of cases that remain in progress from previous years. Overtime the number of penalty action has gone from 89 penalty actions in FY 05-06 to 341 in 08-09 and 262 in 10-11. During FYs 10-11 and 11-15 a data clean-up of enforcement records removed those penalty actions that were not final or that were duplicated due to data migration to the CIWQS database in June 2005.

WHY THIS MEASURE IS IMPORTANT

Liabilities imposed by the Water Boards are an important part of the Water Board's enforcement authority. California law and the Water Boards enforcement policy establish the circumstances for which violations must receive a penalty and in what amount. In certain cases, the Water Boards have the discretion of imposing administrative civil liabilities after considering certain factors. For other types of violations, mandatory minimum penalties must be imposed and settlement conditions for those violations are also limited. The Regional Boards must consider whether the discharger should be allowed to satisfy some or all of the monetary assessment by completing or funding one or more compliance or supplemental environmental projects or by depositing the penalty amount in a specified fund. Preparing each case for prosecution requires a significant amount of time and resources. This measure describes a significant workload for the enforcement program.

TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Data Source: CIWQS. Period: July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012. Extracted on July 30, 2012.
• Unit of Measure: Number of enforcement actions and penalties assessed during FY 11-12 and the progress of those penalties.
• Data Definitions: Penalties Assessed: Amounts assessed in an ACL complaint or order. Penalties Resolved: Amount of penalties assessed that have been either paid or approved as a SEP.
• References: Administrative Civil Liability Report
  Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Information
  The Water Boards' Enforcement Policy
  State Water Board SEP Policy

GLOSSARY

Administrative Civil Liability (ACL)

Administrative Civil Liabilities means monetary assessments imposed by a RWQCB or the SWRCB. The California Water Code and the Health and Safety Code authorize ACLs in several circumstances. California Water Code sections 13323-13327 describe the process to be used to assess ACLs. Assessments of administrative civil liability can be either negotiated pursuant to a settlement agreement or imposed after an administrative adjudication.

Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP)

Supplemental environmental projects are defined as environmentally beneficial projects which a defendant/respondent agrees to undertake in settlement of an enforcement action, but which the defendant respondent is not otherwise legally required to perform. Environmentally beneficial means a SEP must improve, protect, or reduce risks to public health, of the environment at large. While in some cases a SEP may provide the alleged violator with certain benefits, there must be no doubt, that the project primarily benefits the public health or the environment.

Compliance Project

A Compliance Project (CP) is a project designed to address problems related to the violation and bring the discharger back into compliance in a timely manner. CPs can only be considered where they are authorized by statute. At this time, CPs are authorized by statute only in connection with MMPs if the POTW serves a small community with a financial hardship.

( Page last updated:  9/14/12 )