AB 915 amends Water Code Section 6025.5 to add a narrowly tailored exemption from the state's dam safety supervision for water storage facilities that are part of a compressed-air energy storage (CAES) project in a specific area of Kern County. To qualify, the water pool must be no more than 25 feet above final engineered grade, hold 1,500 acre-feet or less, not cross a stream channel, be designed and built under a registered civil engineer’s supervision, and receive required CEQA approvals and certified state agency clearances.
This is significant because it removes the Division of Safety of Dams’ routine regulatory and supervisory authority for these structures and places primary responsibility with local permitting and the CEQA process. The change affects project developers, local governments that must assume supervision duties, downstream property owners, and state agencies whose dam-safety jurisdiction is narrowed for this specific project footprint in Kern County.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill adds subsection (b) to Water Code §6025.5, excluding from state dam-safety requirements certain water storage elements of a compressed-air energy storage facility in a defined Kern County area if they meet size, design, location, and CEQA certification criteria.
Who It Affects
Affected parties include the CAES project developer and contractors, the local lead agency in Kern County that issues CEQA approvals and assumes supervision, the Division of Safety of Dams (which loses direct oversight for these structures), downstream landowners, and state regulatory agencies involved in CEQA certification.
Why It Matters
The measure creates a project-specific regulatory path that prioritizes local supervision and CEQA review over uniform state dam-safety oversight, lowering a potential permitting barrier for CAES development while raising questions about consistency of safety standards and liability allocation.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 915 amends Water Code §6025.5, which already exempts some wastewater ponds from state dam-safety supervision, by adding a second, narrowly drawn exemption for water storage structures tied to a compressed-air energy storage facility in a defined area of Kern County. Instead of subjecting those water-storage elements to the Division of Safety of Dams’ permitting, inspection, and supervision regime, the bill allows them to proceed under local supervision if they meet the bill’s precise technical and procedural conditions.
To qualify for the exemption the water storage must have a maximum pool height of 25 feet or less measured from the final engineered grade, a storage capacity limited to 1,500 acre-feet or less, be designed and constructed under the supervision of a registered civil engineer, and not be located across a stream channel or watercourse. The bill also conditions the exemption on completion of approvals required under Division 13 (CEQA), including sign-off by state regulatory agencies that have been certified by the Secretary of the Resources Agency pursuant to Public Resources Code §21080.5.Practically speaking, project proponents gain a path that avoids certain state dam-safety permitting steps, but they do not escape environmental review; CEQA approval and certified agency clearances remain mandatory.
Local authorities and the lead agency that issues CEQA approvals will be the front-line supervisors for design, construction, and operation responsibilities otherwise handled by the state’s dam-safety program. The bill also contains a legislative finding that the rule must be a special statute limited to this Kern County project because of the project’s uniqueness.The exemption is tightly bounded: it applies only to facilities north of Dawn Road between State Route 14 and Sierra Highway in Kern County and only to compressed-air energy storage projects that meet the enumerated criteria.
That geographic and technological specificity makes this an unusual, single-project statutory carve-out rather than a broader policy change to California’s dam-safety regime.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill amends Water Code §6025.5 to add an exemption specifically for CAES-related water storage in a defined area of Kern County (north of Dawn Road between SR‑14 and Sierra Highway).
To qualify, the water pool must be no more than 25 feet above final engineered grade and the storage capacity must be 1,500 acre-feet or less.
The exemption requires design and construction under the supervision of a registered civil engineer and prohibits locating the structure across a stream channel or watercourse.
The exemption is conditioned on CEQA approval (Division 13) and approval by state regulatory agencies certified under Public Resources Code §21080.5.
The Legislature declares the measure a special statute limited to the unique project in Kern County, meaning the exception does not create a statewide precedent in text.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Adds a CAES-specific exemption to state dam-safety rules
This amendment retains the existing wastewater-pond exemption and inserts a new subsection carving out water storage facilities tied to compressed-air energy storage in a narrowly defined area of Kern County. The practical effect is that structures meeting the prescription no longer fall under the Division of Safety of Dams’ statutory supervision, permitting, and inspection authority under the Water Code, shifting supervisory duties to the local agency identified in the CEQA process.
Size and elevation thresholds
This provision sets quantitative limits: a maximum water pool height of 25 feet from final engineered grade and a maximum storage capacity of 1,500 acre-feet. Those thresholds are the statutory gatekeepers: if a proposed storage element exceeds either limit it remains subject to state dam-safety regulation. For project planners and engineers, these numbers define feasible design envelopes and financing thresholds because they determine whether state dam-safety rules will apply.
Design supervision, location restriction, and CEQA conditioning
The bill requires a registered civil engineer to supervise design and construction, excludes structures that cross stream channels or watercourses, and conditions the exemption on completion of CEQA approvals and agency certifications under §21080.5. Those requirements preserve technical oversight and environmental review but reframe who performs and enforces those responsibilities: local lead agencies and certified state agencies under CEQA rather than the Division of Safety of Dams.
Legislative finding — special statute necessity
Section 2 states a constitutional finding that a special statute is necessary and a general statute could not be made applicable, anchoring the geographic specificity of the exemption. That language signals the Legislature’s intent to limit the change to this particular project footprint and is important for how courts and agencies will interpret the bill’s scope.
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Explore Energy in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- CAES project developer and contractors — They gain a narrower, locally supervised permitting path and avoid certain state dam-safety permitting steps if they design within the bill’s thresholds, potentially speeding construction and reducing state-level compliance tasks.
- Kern County lead agency and local regulators — The bill gives local authorities primary supervision for these structures and the chance to control inspection and enforcement processes tied to the project.
- Project financiers and investors focused on CAES — Predictable statutory thresholds and a defined exemption reduce regulatory uncertainty for elements that meet the size and location criteria, which can simplify underwriting for those components.
Who Bears the Cost
- Local government (Kern County and the CEQA lead agency) — They assume increased responsibility for supervision, inspection, and potential long-term oversight costs that would otherwise fall to the state dam-safety agency.
- Downstream property owners and local residents — They bear residual safety and risk exposure if local supervision or CEQA mitigation is weaker than state dam-safety oversight would have been, and they may shoulder emergency-response or remediation burdens in the event of a failure.
- State Division of Safety of Dams and state agencies not certified under §21080.5 — The Division loses direct authority over these structures, and uncertified state agencies may have limited roles, shifting the compliance landscape and enforcement pathways.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between speeding and tailoring permitting for a major energy project by shifting oversight to local authorities and preserving public safety through a uniform, technical state dam-safety regime; the bill solves one problem (project-specific regulatory relief) while creating uncertainty about whether CEQA and local supervision will fully replicate the specialized protections of state dam-safety oversight.
The bill trades uniform state dam-safety supervision for a tightly constrained, project-specific carve-out that relies on CEQA and local supervision to manage the same risks. That reliance raises implementation questions: CEQA is an environmental review statute, not a technical dam-safety code, and its mitigation and monitoring regimes differ from the Division of Safety of Dams’ engineering-focused permitting, inspection, and maintenance oversight.
Translating dam-safety best practices into CEQA conditions and local permits will require careful drafting and ongoing enforcement capacity at the local level.
The statutory thresholds (25 feet, 1,500 acre-feet) are blunt instruments. They simplify administration but may not align with actual risk — a smaller reservoir placed high above developed areas can pose more downstream hazard than a larger, well-baffled pond in an isolated basin.
The bill’s ‘‘not across a stream channel’’ limitation narrows application but leaves room for interpretive disputes about what constitutes a watercourse. Finally, the geographic specificity (the Dawn Road–SR‑14–Sierra Highway corridor) creates a single-project statutory path that courts may scrutinize if challenged on equal protection or special statute grounds, and it sets a political precedent for other project-specific exemptions.
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