2023 California Code › Water Code - WAT › DIVISION 1 - GENERAL STATE POWERS OVER WATER › CHAPTER 2 - State Administration Generally › ARTICLE 3 - State Water Resources Control Board › Section 189.7.

189.7. (a) Outreach to identify issues of environmental justice needs to begin as early as possible in state board or regional board planning, policy, and permitting processes. The state board and each regional board shall do both of the following:
(1) Engage in equitable, culturally relevant community outreach to promote meaningful civil engagement from potentially impacted communities of proposed discharges of waste that may have disproportionate impacts on water quality in disadvantaged communities or tribal communities and ensure that outreach and engagement shall continue throughout the waste discharge planning, policy, and permitting processes.
(2) Contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act for this purpose, hire environmental justice and tribal community coordinator positions solely dedicated to the purpose of achieving, at a minimum, all of the following goals:
(A) Adhering to environmental justice goals, policies, and objectives.
(B) Promoting meaningful civic engagement in the public decisionmaking process.
(C) Informing water quality control plans and state policies for water quality control, and amendments thereto, and statewide, regional, and individual waste discharge requirements or waivers of waste discharge requirements that address water quality impacts that occur disproportionately in disadvantaged communities pursuant to Section 13149.2.
(D) Soliciting community recommendations for future projects to be listed on regional board supplemental environmental project lists.
(b) Contingent upon a specific appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or other statute for these purposes, the state board shall do all of the following:
(1) Direct resources for training of state board and regional board staff to advance adherence to environmental justice objectives, goals, and policies adopted by the state board and the regional boards.
(2) Establish a community capacity-building stipend program to promote meaningful civic engagement by disadvantaged communities and tribal communities in the state board and regional board decisionmaking processes by providing funding or services that allow members of the public to overcome barriers, such as technology, language, travel, and income, to public participation.
(3) Develop program-specific tools to better identify and prioritize state board and regional board compliance assessment and enforcement actions in disadvantaged communities.
(c) The state board may, through contracts or grants, utilize nonprofit organizations organized for the purpose of addressing environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities or that work closely with tribal communities to administer all or part of the activities specified in paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) and paragraph (2) of subdivision (b).
(d) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:
(1) “Disadvantaged community” means a community in which the median household income is less than 80 percent of the statewide annual median household income level.
(2) “Environmental justice” has the same meaning as defined in Section 30107.3 of the Public Resources Code.
(3) “Meaningful civic engagement” includes, but is not limited to, all of the following:
(A) Providing opportunities for people to participate in decisionmaking processes about activities that may affect their environment or health and to contribute to the state board’s and regional boards’ decisionmaking.
(B) Seeking out and facilitating the involvement of people potentially affected by the decisions and taking into account community concerns.
(C) Informing disadvantaged and tribal community members of opportunities to be appointed to advisory or decisionmaking bodies, thereby empowering those community members to become advisors or decisionmakers.
(4) “Tribal community” means a community within a federally recognized California Native American tribe or nonfederally recognized Native American tribe on the contact list maintained by the Native American Heritage Commission for the purposes of Chapter 905 of the Statutes of 2004.
(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 347, Sec. 2. (AB 2108) Effective January 1, 2023.)