For use in these chapters, unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the following terms are defined:
1. “Authorized City representative” means the City Administrator or any designated representative.
2. “Basic user charge” means a charge levied on each user for administrative costs and debt retirement.
3. “B.O.D.” (denoting Biochemical Oxygen Demand) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure in five (5) days at twenty degrees (20°) C., expressed in milligrams per liter (mg/l).
4. “Building drain” means that part of the lowest piping of a drainage system which receives the discharge from soil, waste, and other drainage pipes inside the walls of the building and conveys it to the building sewer, or other approved point of discharge, beginning two (2) feet outside the building wall.
5. “Building sewer” means the extension from the building drain to the public sewer or other place of disposal.
6. “Combined sewer” means a sewer which is designed and intended to receive wastewater, storm, surface and groundwater drainage.
7. “DNR” means the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
8. “Easement” means an acquired legal right for the specific use of land owned by others.
9. “Effluent criteria” are defined in any applicable “NPDES Permit.”
10. “EPA” means the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
11. “Federal Act” or “Act” means the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et. seq.) as amended by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Pub. L. 92-500 and Pub. L. 93-243), and any other amendments to said public laws.
12. “Federal grant” means the U.S. government participation in the financing of the construction of treatment works as provided for by Title II - Grants for Construction of Treatment Works of the Act and implementing regulations.
13. “Floatable oil” means oil, fat or grease in a physical state such that it will separate by gravity from wastewater by treatment in an approved pretreatment facility. A wastewater shall be considered free of floatable fat if it is properly pretreated and the wastewater does not interfere with the collection system.
14. “Garbage” means solid wastes from the domestic and commercial preparation, cooking, and dispensing of food, and from the handling, storage and sale of produce.
15. “Industrial wastes” means any liquid, solid or gaseous substance discharged, permitted to flow or escaping from any industrial manufacturing, commercial, or business establishment or process or from the development, recovery, or processing of any natural resource as distinct from sanitary sewage.
16. “Major contributing industry” means an industrial user of the publicly owned treatment works that:
A. Has a flow of 25,000 gallons or more per average work day; or
B. Has a flow greater than five percent of the flow carried by the municipal system receiving the waste; or more of the average dry weather hydraulic or organic capacity of the treatment plant; or
C. Has in its waste a toxic pollutant in toxic amounts as defined in standards issued under section 307(a) of the Federal Act; or
D. Is found by the permit issuance authority, in connection with the issuance of the NPDES permit to the publicly owned treatment works receiving the waste, to have significant impact, either singly or in combination with other contributing industries, on that treatment works or upon the quality of effluent from that treatment works.
17. “Milligrams per liter” means a unit of the concentration of water or wastewater constituent. It is 0.001 g of the constituent in 1,000 ml of water. It has replaced the unit formerly used commonly, parts per million, to which it is approximately equivalent, in reporting the results of water and wastewater analysis.
18. “Natural outlet” means any outlet into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake, or other body of surface or groundwater.
19. “NH3” or “NH3N” (Denoting Ammonia) means that portion of nitrogen in the form of protein or intermediate decomposition products which is determined by standard laboratory procedures for analysis of ammonia nitrogen, expressed in milligrams per liter (mg/l).
20. “NPDES permit” means any permit or equivalent document or requirements issued by the administrator, or where appropriate, by the director after enactment of the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments of 1972, to regulate the discharge of pollutants pursuant to Section 402 of the Federal Act.
21. “pH” means the logarithms (Base 10) of the reciprocal of the hydrogen-ion concentration expressed by one of the procedures outlined in “Standard Methods.”
22. “Population equivalent” means a term used to evaluate the impact of industrial or other waste on a treatment works or stream. One population equivalent is 100 gallons of sewage per day, containing 0.17 pounds (200 mg/l) of BOD, 0.20 pounds (240 mg/l) of suspended solids, and 0.03 pounds (40 mg/l) of ammonia-nitrogen (NH3N) and 1.25 pounds (1,500 mg/l) sulfate.
23. “Ppm” means parts per million by weight.
24. “Pretreatment” means the treatment of wastewater from sources before introduction into the wastewater treatment works.
25. “Properly shredded garbage” means the wastes from the preparation, cooking, and dispensing of food that have been shredded to such a degree that all particles will be carried freely under the flow conditions normally prevailing in public sewers, with no particle greater than one half (½) inch in any dimension.
26. “Public sewer” means a sewer provided by or subject to the jurisdiction of the City. It also includes sewers within or outside the corporate boundary that serve one or more persons and ultimately discharge into the City sanitary sewers, even though those sewers may not have been constructed with City funds.
27. “Sanitary sewer” means a sewer which conveys sewage or industrial wastes or a combination of both, and into which storm, surface and groundwaters or unpolluted industrial wastes are not intentionally admitted.
28. “Sewage” is used interchangeably with “wastewater.”
29. “Sewer” means a pipe or conduit for conveying sewage or any other waste liquids, including storm, surface and groundwater drainage.
30. “Sewer connection charge” means the amount to be paid prior to making or altering a new connection to a public sewer by a user.
31. “Sewerage” means the system of sewers and appurtenances for the collection, transportation and pumping of sewage.
32. “Significant noncompliance” means:
A. Chronic violations of wastewater discharge limits, defined here as those in which sixty-six percent (66%) or more of wastewater measurements taken during a 6-month period exceed the daily maximum limit or average limit for the same pollutant parameter by any amount;
B. Technical Review Criteria (TRC) violations, defined here as those in which thirty-three percent (33%) or more of wastewater measurements taken for each pollutant parameter during a 6- month period equals or exceeds the product of the daily maximum limit or the average limit multiplied by the applicable criteria (1.4 for BOD, TSS, fats, oils and grease, and 1.2 for all other pollutants except pH);
C. Any other discharge violation that the City believes has caused, alone or in combination with other discharges, interference or pass through (including endangering the health of City personnel or the general public);
D. Any discharge of pollutants that has caused imminent endangerment to the public or to the environment, or has resulted in the City’s exercise of its emergency authority to halt or prevent such a discharge;
E. Failure to meet, within 90 days of the scheduled date, a compliance schedule milestone contained in a wastewater discharge permit or enforcement order for starting construction, completing construction or attaining final compliance;
F. Failure to provide, within 30 days after the due date, any required reports, including baseline monitoring reports, 90-day compliance reports, periodic self-monitoring reports and reports on compliance schedules;
G. Failure to accurately report noncompliance;
H. Any other violation(s) which the City determines will adversely affect the operation or implementation of the local pretreatment program.
33. “Slug” means any discharge of water, sewage, or industrial waste which in concentration of any given constituent or in quantity of flow exceeds for any period of duration longer than fifteen (15) minutes more than five (5) times the average twenty-four (24) hour concentration or flows during normal operation.
34. “Standard methods” means the examination and analytical procedures set forth in the most recent edition of Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater published jointly by the American Public Health Association, the American Water Works Association, and the Water Pollution Control Federation.
35. “Storm sewer” means a sewer which carries storm, surface and groundwater drainage but excludes sewage and industrial wastes, other than unpolluted cooling water.
36. “Storm water runoff” means that portion of the precipitation that is drained into the sewers.
37. “State Act” means the Code of Iowa, Chapter 445B et. seq.
38. “State grant” means the State participation in the financing of the construction of treatment works as provided for by the Code of Iowa.
39. “Surcharge” means the assessment in addition to the user charge and basic user charge which is levied on those persons whose wastes are greater in strength than the concentration values established.
40. “Suspended solids” means solids that either float on the surface of, or are in suspension in, water, sewage or industrial waste, and which are removable by a laboratory filtration device. Quantitative determination of suspended solids shall be made in accordance with procedures set forth in Standard Methods.
41. “User charge” means a charge levied on users of treatment works for the cost of operation and maintenance including replacement.
42. “Unpolluted water” means water of quality equal to or better than the effluent criteria in effect or water that would not cause violation of receiving water quality standards and would not be benefited by discharge to the sanitary sewers and wastewater treatment facilities provided.
43. “Wastewater” means the spent water of a community. From this standpoint, of course, it may be a combination of the liquid and water- carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions, together with any groundwater, surface water and storm water that may be present.
44. “Wastewater facilities” means the structures, equipment and processes required to collect, carry away, and treat domestic and industrial wastes and transport effluent to a watercourse.
45. “Wastewater treatment works” means an arrangement of devices and structures for treating wastewater, industrial wastes and sludge. Sometimes used as synonymous with “waste treatment plant” or “wastewater treatment plant” or “pollution control plant.”
46. “Water quality standards” are defined in the Iowa Administrative Code, Chapter 16.
47. “Watercourse” means a channel in which a flow of water occurs, either continuously or intermittently.