Cal. HSC § 5411.5

This is the official text of Cal. HSC § 5411.5, part of California’s Health and Safety Code — covers public health, hospitals, controlled substances, and environmental health standards.

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Official statutory text

(a) Any person who, without regard to intent or negligence, causes or permits any sewage or other waste, or the effluent of treated sewage or other waste, to be discharged in or on any waters of the state, or discharged in or deposited where it is, or probably will be, discharged in or on any waters of the state, shall, as soon as that person has knowledge of the discharge, immediately notify the local health officer or the director of environmental health of the discharge.

(b) A 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) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or imprisonment for less than one year, or both the fine and imprisonment.

(c) The notification required by this section shall not apply to a discharge authorized by law and in compliance with waste discharge requirements or other requirements established by the appropriate regional water quality control board or the State Water Resources Control Board.

(d) The notification required by this section shall not apply to an unauthorized discharge of effluent of treated sewage defined as recycled water pursuant to Section 13050 or 13529.2 of the Water Code.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.