Water: County of Ventura: fire suppression.

Assembly Member Bennett's legislation requiring Ventura County water suppliers to maintain backup power for fire suppression responds to the region's history of devastating fires. The measure establishes new requirements for water systems serving high and very high fire hazard severity zones, mandating 24-hour backup energy capabilities or alternative water sources by July 2030.

Under the bill, water suppliers must restore power within 30 minutes of an outage when using automatic transfer switches, or "as soon as practically possible" otherwise. Those utilizing mobile backup sources must provide power within 12 hours of red flag warnings. The legislation requires water suppliers to identify critical infrastructure by May 2026 and create emergency preparedness plans addressing extreme weather events and major outages. These plans must outline procedures for filling water tanks and positioning backup power sources.

The Ventura County Fire Department must develop minimum fire safety standards by January 2027 and conduct annual inspections of critical infrastructure in hazard zones. Water suppliers must notify county emergency services within three business days of any reduction in water delivery capacity that could impact firefighting operations. When fires damage more than 10 residential dwellings in a supplier's service area, the fire department and supplier must jointly report on water system preparedness to the County Board of Supervisors. The requirements exempt gravity-fed systems and non-fire suppression water infrastructure.