Wat. Code, § 13272 · Article 4. Waste Discharge Requirements
Wat. Code, § 13272
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Except as provided by subdivision (b), any person who, without regard to intent or negligence, causes or permits any oil or petroleum product to be discharged in or on any waters of the state, or discharged or deposited where it is, or probably will be, discharged in or on any waters of the state, shall, as soon as (1) that person has knowledge of the discharge, (2) notification is possible, and (3) notification can be provided without substantially impeding cleanup or other emergency measures, immediately notify the Office of Emergency Services of the discharge in accordance with the spill reporting provision of the California oil spill contingency plan adopted pursuant to Article 3.5 (commencing with Section 8574.1) of Chapter 7 of Division 1 of Title 2 of the Government Code.
(b) The notification required by this section shall not apply to a discharge in compliance with waste discharge requirements or other provisions of this division.
(c) Any person who fails to provide the notice required by this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars ($500) or more than five thousand dollars ($5,000) per day for each day of failure to notify, or imprisonment of not more than one year, or both. Except where a discharge to the waters of this state would have occurred but for cleanup or emergency response by a public agency, this subdivision shall not apply to any discharge to land that does not result in a discharge to the waters of this state. This subdivision shall not apply to any person who is fined by the federal government for a failure to report a discharge of oil.
(d) Notification received pursuant to this section or information obtained by use of that notification shall not be used against any person providing the notification in any criminal case, except in a prosecution for perjury or giving a false statement.
(e) Immediate notification to the appropriate regional board of the discharge, in accordance with reporting requirements set under Section 13267 or 13383, shall constitute compliance with the requirements of subdivision (a).
(f) The reportable quantity for oil or petroleum products shall be one barrel (42 gallons) or more, by direct discharge to the receiving waters, unless a more restrictive reporting standard for a particular body of water is adopted.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2014, Ch. 35, Sec. 184. (SB 861) Effective June 20, 2014.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=WAT§ionNum=13272.
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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