Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in this article shall be as follows:
(a) "Applicant" means a person, firm, corporation, municipality, public service district or any other entity that applies for sewer service.
(b) “Available sewer service.” Sewer service will be deemed available to a customer when a main is installed and maintained by the utility in such location and at such distance from the user's premises as may be provided by city ordinance or by the rules of the utility: Provided, that service shall not be deemed to be available unless the sewage will flow by gravity or be transported by such other methods approved by the Bureau for Public Health including, but not limited to, vacuum and pressure systems, approved under W. Va. Code §16-1-9, from the customer's point of service into the utility service pipe.
(c) Billing Related Definition:
(1) “Bill due date” means the date when the utility mails the bill.
(2) “Latest pay date” means the last date, which shall be no sooner than the 20th day following the date the utility mails the bill, that the bill may be paid without incurring a late payment penalty. Such date must be stated on the face of the bill.
(3) “Delinquent bill” means any bill issued by a public service district that has not been paid within twenty (20) days of the bill due date; or any bill issued by a sewer utility that is not a public service district within thirty (30) days of the bill due date. Such date must be stated on the face of the bill.
(d) "B.O.D." or "Biochemical Oxygen Demand" means the quantity of oxygen expressed in milligrams per liter, utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedures of five days at twenty degrees centigrade.
(e) "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 customers service line, and/or to the lateral sewer.
(f) "City" means the City of Charles Town, West Virginia.
(g) "Council" means the City Council of the City of Charles Town, West Virginia.
(h) “Commercial Service” means service to each separate business enterprise, occupation or institution occupying for its exclusive use any units or units of space as an entire building, entire floor, suite of rooms or a single room, and using water for such incidental use as the schedule of rates applicable to the particular installation may permit. Commercial service shall apply to all stores, offices, hotels, wholesale houses, garages, display windows, signs, theaters, barber and beauty shops, churches, opera houses, auditoriums, lodge halls, school houses, banks, bakeries and any other space occupied for commercial purposes. Any rooming house, lodging house, resort, inn or tavern renting more than four (4) rooms to strangers or transients without any previous agreement for accommodation or as to the duration of stay shall be classed as a hotel and as such it comes under the commercial classification.
(i) “Commission" means whenever in this ordinance the words "Commission" or "Public Service Commission" appear, such word, or words, shall, unless a different intent clearly appears from the context, be taken to mean the Public Service Commission of West Virginia.
(j) "Customer" shall mean and include any such person, firm, corporation, municipality, public service district or any other entity who purchases a product or services of any utility and shall include any such person, firm, corporation, municipality, public service district or any other entity who purchases such services or product for resale.
(k) "Customer's Service Pipe" shall be that portion of the service pipe from the point of service to the structure or premises, installed at the cost and expense of the customer.
(l) "Garbage" means the animal and vegetable waste resulting from the handling, preparation, cooking, and serving of foods.
(m) "Improved property" means any property located within the City upon which there is erected a structure intended for continuous or periodic habitation, occupancy or use by human beings or animals and from which structure sanitary sewage and/or industrial wastes are or may be discharged.
(n) "Industrial waste" means any solid, liquid or gaseous substance or form of energy rejected or escaping in the course of any industrial manufacturing, trade or business process or in the course of the development, recovery or processing of natural resources, as distinct from sanitary sewage.
(o) "Lateral" means that part of the sewer system extending from a sewer located in the street to the curb line; or, if there shall be no curb line, to the property line; or, if no such lateral shall be provided, then "lateral" means that portion of, or place in, a sewer which is provided for connection of any customer service line.
(p) "Moratorium" means a condition imposed on a utility by the Commission prohibiting service connections and/or reactivation of service for an entire system, or a portion thereof.
(q) "Natural outlet" means any outlet, including storm sewers and combined sewers, which overflows into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake or other body of surface or groundwater.
(r) "Owner" means any person vested with ownership, legal or equitable, sole or partial, in any real property.
(s) “Payment” means a payment made by cash, check, credit card, debit card, or voucher accepted by the utility.
(t) "Person" means any individual, firm, company, association, society, corporation, partnership or group.
(u) "pH" means the reciprocal of the logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration. The concentration is the weight of hydrogen ions, in grams, per liter of solution.
(v) “Point of service” means the utility's pipe and appurtenances which connect any utility service pipe with the inlet connection of a customer's service pipe at the customer’s property line or elsewhere on the customer’s property if provided for in a user’s agreement. The utility shall own and maintain all facilities located between the point of service and the main.
(w) "Public Utility" except where a different meaning clearly appears from the context, the word, or words, "Utility" or "Public Utility" when used in these rules shall mean and include any person or persons, or association of persons, however associated, whether incorporated or not, including municipalities, engaged in the business of collecting, transporting, and/or treating sewage.
(x) “Residential Service” means service to a householder or a tenant, living in a separate house or separate apartment in an apartment building, using water and sewer for general household service. Should the owner of a multiple apartment building undertake to furnish water to his tenants as a part of their monthly rent, then such service shall be classed as “Commercial.” In cases where a householder or tenant devotes some portion of the occupied building to commercial use and uses the remainder as a residence then the predominate use of water shall constitute the basis for classification as either residential or commercial.
(y) "Right of way" or "easement" means an acquired legal right for the specific use of land owned by others.
(z) "Sanitary sewage" means normal water-carried household and toilet wastes from any improved property. The preferred term is wastewater.
(aa) "Sanitary sewer" means a sewer controlled by the City that carries liquid and water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions.
(bb) "Sewer" means any pipe or conduit that carries wastewater, domestic drainage, sanitary wastes, or industrial wastes.
(cc) "Sewer Main" means sewer pipe owned, operated, or maintained by the utility located in a public right-of-way, street, alley, or private right-of-way, used for the purpose of collecting sewage and from which service connections for customers are taken. Any sewer pipe extending through a utility right-of-way across private property shall be a sewer main. Costs to install a sewer main across private property are subject to the cost-sharing provisions of Rule 5.5 of the Commission’s “Rules for the Government of Sewer Utilities,” 150CSR5.
(dd) "Sewer system" means all wastewater facilities, owned by the City, for collecting, pumping, treating and disposing of sanitary sewage or industrial wastes.
(ee) "Significant industrial user" means any industrial user that will contribute greater than ten percent (10%) of the design flow or design pollutant loading of the treatment works.
(ff) "Single-family dwelling" means any room, group of rooms, house trailer or other enclosure occupied or intended for occupancy as separate living quarters by a family or other group of persons living together, or by persons living alone.
(gg) "Slug" means any discharge of wastewater which in concentration of any give constituent or in quantity of flow exceeds for any period of duration longer than fifteen minutes and is more than five times the average twenty-four hour concentration of flows during normal operation and shall adversely affect the sewer system and/or performance of the wastewater treatment works.
(hh) "Suspended solids" means those solids which are visible and in suspension in the water. Included are the larger floating particles consisting of sand, grit, clay, fecal solids, paper, sticks of wood, particles of food and garbage, and similar materials.
(ii) "Temporary Service Connection" means one which is installed for temporary use; provided that the customer's premises is located on a lot having a curb line abutting on that part of a street or public right-of-way in which there is located a utility sewer main extending along the total frontage of the lot on said street or right-of- way, unless otherwise agreed to by the utility.
(jj) “Utility Board” as used in this article shall mean the board created for the supervision, management, control and operation of the City Water and Sewerage system. Refer to Article 147 of the City of Charles Town Codified Ordinance.
(kk) "Utility Service Pipe" shall be that portion of the service pipe between the sewer main and the point of service, installed at the cost and expense of the utility.
(ll) "Wastewater facilities" means the structures, equipment, and processes required to collect, carry and treat domestic and industrial wastes and to dispose of the effluent. (Passed 3-5-07.)