Water theft: fire hydrants.

Section 1882.1(f) of the Civil Code now includes a new standalone violation: connecting to, diverting water from, or causing water to be diverted from a fire hydrant without authorization from the utility that owns the fire hydrant. Unlike the existing language in the same subsection, this new provision does not require showing that the person had knowledge of or reason to believe the diversion existed at the time of use, lowering the burden for utilities bringing civil actions.

The fine schedule in Section 53069.45 of the Government Code was revised to remove the 'within one year of the first violation' time limit for third and additional violations. For meter tampering, the maximum fine of $1,300 now applies to any third or subsequent violation regardless of when prior violations occurred. For all other forms of water theft, the maximum fine of $3,000 now applies similarly without a one-year window.

Senator Rubio was added as a coauthor of the bill.

Drafting cleanups in Section 1882.3 removed a stray 'on' before 'if either' and restructured subsection (a) to properly use (a)(1) and (a)(2) numbering instead of duplicated (a) labels.

Removed amendment history headers (Amended in Assembly July 3, 2025 and June 9, 2025) and sponsor information (Senator Allen, Coauthor Senator Rubio), replacing them with passage dates: Passed the Senate August 25, 2025 and Passed the Assembly July 10, 2025.

Added enrollment certification language including 'This bill was received by the Governor this day of , 2025' and an approval signature block for the Governor.

Reformatted the entire bill from a line-numbered working draft format to a clean enrolled format without line numbers, with updated page numbering (97 to 96).

The bill was renumbered as Chapter 540 of the Statutes of 2025, with the governor's approval date (October 10, 2025) and filing date added in place of blank signature fields.

Standard authenticated document header ('STATE OF CALIFORNIA AUTHENTICATED ELECTRONIC LEGAL MATERIAL') was added to the chaptered version.

Page headers changed from 'SB 394' to 'Ch. 540' and page numbering was adjusted to reflect the new document format.

The standard for what constitutes a water theft violation via fire hydrant was changed from requiring knowledge or reason to believe the use was for nonfirefighting purposes or unauthorized by the water system/fire department, to simply acting without authorization from the utility that owns the fire hydrant. This lowers the burden of proof for utilities bringing civil actions.

A new exception was added: during an active fire incident, a public agency with firefighting or emergency response responsibilities, or a qualified insurance resource (as defined in Labor Code Section 1139), is deemed to have authorization from the utility if approved by incident command or the authority having jurisdiction over the fire. This protects emergency responders and insurance resources from civil liability when using hydrants during fires.