RECENT CALIFORNIA DECISIONS

December 2004

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First District Affirms Mandatory Minimum Penalty of $243,000 for Violations of Wastewater Discharge Permit by the City of Brentwood
City of Brentwood v. Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, ___Cal.App.4th___

On October 27, 2004, the California Court of Appeal, First District, Division Five, issued an order af-firming the Alameda County Superior Court’s denial of the City of Brentwood’s petition for administrative mandamus regarding the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board’s imposition of a mandatory minimum penalty of $243,000 for the city’s violations of the dissolved oxygen effluent limitation under its wastewater discharge permit. The Court of Appeal construed the mandatory minimum penalty statute and held that it was the city’s burden, as the discharger, to prove that an exception in California Water Code § 13385(j)(1) relieves it from liability for violations that are subject to the mandatory minimum penalties.