For the purpose of this subchapter, the following definitions shall apply unless the context clearly indicates or requires a different meaning.
AUTHORIZED ENFORCEMENT AGENCY. The City Department of Storm Water Management.
BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES. Design, construction, and maintenance practices and criteria for storm water facilities that minimize the impact of storm water runoff rates and volumes, prevent erosion, and capture pollutants.
CHANNEL. A portion of a natural or artificial watercourse which periodically or continuously contains moving water, or which forms a connecting link between two bodies of water. It has a defined bed and banks which serve to confine the water.
CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY. Land disturbing activities, and land disturbing activities associated with the construction of infrastructure and structures. This term does not include routine ditch or road maintenance or minor landscaping projects.
CONVEYANCE. Any structural method for transferring storm water between at least two points.
The term includes piping, ditches, swales, curbs, gutters, catch basins, channels, storm drains, and roadways.
DEPARTMENT. The City Department of Storm Water Management.
DETENTION. Managing storm water runoff by temporary holding and controlled release.
DETENTION BASIN. A facility constructed or modified to restrict the flow of storm water to a prescribed maximum rate, and to detain concurrently the excess waters that accumulate behind the outlet.
DEVELOPMENT. Any man-made change to improved or unimproved real estate including but not limited to:
(1) Construction, reconstruction, or placement of a building or any addition to a building;
(2) Construction of flood control structures such as levees, dikes, dams or channel improvements;
(3) Construction or reconstruction of bridges or culverts:
(4) Installing a manufactured home on a site, preparing a site for a manufactured home, or installing a recreational vehicle on a site for more than 180 days;
(5) Installing utilities, erection of walls, construction of roads, or similar projects;
(6) Mining, dredging, filling, grading, excavation, or drilling operations;
(7) Storage of materials; or
(8) Any other activity that might change the direction, height, or velocity of flood or surface waters.
EROSION. The wearing away of the land surface by water, wind, ice, gravity, or other geological agents. The following terms are used to describe different types of water erosion:
(1) ACCELERATED EROSION. Erosion much more rapid than normal or geologic erosion, primarily as a result of the activities of man.
(2) CHANNEL EROSION. An erosion process whereby the volume and velocity of flow wears away the bed and/or banks of a well-defined channel.
(3) GULLY EROSION. An erosion process whereby runoff water accumulates in narrow channels and, over relatively short periods, removes the soil to considerable depths, ranging from one to two feet to as much as 75 to 100 feet.
(4) RILL EROSION. An erosion process in which numerous small channels only several inches deep are formed; occurs mainly on recently disturbed and exposed soils.
(5) SHEET EROSION. The gradual removal of a fairly uniform layer of soil from the land surface by runoff water.
(6) SPLASH EROSION. The spattering of small soil particles caused by the impact of raindrops on wet soils; the loosened and spattered particles may or may not be subsequently removed by surface runoff.
FILTER STRIP. Usually a long, relatively narrow area (usually, 20 - 75 feet wide) of undisturbed or planted vegetation used near disturbed or impervious surfaces to filter storm water pollutants for the protection of watercourses, reservoirs, or adjacent properties.
GRADING. The cutting and filling of the land surface to a desired slope or elevation.
HOT SPOT DEVELOPMENT. Projects involving land uses considered to be high pollutant producers such as vehicle service and maintenance facilities, vehicle salvage yards and recycling facilities, vehicle and equipment cleaning facilities, fleet storage areas for buses, trucks, and the like, industrial/commercial or any hazardous waste storage areas or areas that generate such wastes, industrial sites, restaurants and convenience stores, any activity involving chemical mixing or loading/unloading, outdoor liquid container storage, public works storage areas, commercial container nurseries, and some high traffic retail uses characterized by frequent vehicle turnover.
IMPERVIOUS SURFACE. Surfaces, such as pavement and rooftops, which prevent the infiltration of storm water into the soil.
INFILTRATION. Passage or movement of water into the soil. INFILTRATION practices include any structural BMP designed to facilitate the percolation of runoff through the soil to groundwater. Examples include infiltration basins or trenches, dry wells, and porous pavement.
LAND-DISTURBING ACTIVITY. Any man-made change of the land surface, including removing vegetative cover that exposes the underlying soil, excavating, filling, transporting and grading.
LARGER COMMON PLAN OF DEVELOPMENT OR SALE. A plan, undertaken by a single project site owner or a group of project site owners acting in concert, to offer lots for sale or lease; where such land is contiguous, or is known, designated, purchased or advertised as a common unit or by a common name, such land shall be presumed as being offered for sale or lease as part of a larger common plan. The term also includes phased or other construction activity by a single entity for its own use.
PROJECT SITE OWNER. The person required to submit a storm water permit application and required to comply with the terms of this chapter,
including a developer or a person who has financial and operational control of construction activities, and project plans and specifications, including the ability to make modifications to those plans and specifications.
REDEVELOPMENT. Development occurring on a previously developed site.
RETENTION BASIN. A type of storage practice, that has no positive outlet, used to retain storm water runoff for an indefinite amount of time. Runoff from this type of basin is removed only by infiltration through a porous bottom or by evaporation.
RUNOFF. That portion of precipitation that flows from a drainage area on the land surface, in open channels, or in storm water conveyance systems.
STORM WATER POLLUTION PREVENTION PLAN. A plan developed to minimize the impact of storm water pollutants resulting from construction activities.
STORM WATER QUALITY MEASURE. A practice, or a combination of practices, to control or minimize pollutants associated with storm water runoff.
STORM WATER RUNOFF. The water derived from rains falling within a tributary basin, flowing over the surface of the ground or collected in channels or conduits.
WATER QUALITY. A term used to describe the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water, usually in respect to its suitability for a particular purpose.
WETLANDS. Areas that are inundated or saturated by surface water or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.
(Ord. 2023-11, passed 8-1-2023)