Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the following terms and phrases, as used in this chapter, shall have the meanings hereinafter designated:
(1) "Act (the Act)" means the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, as amended by the Clean Water Act of 1977 and the Water Quality Act of 1987, 33 U.S.C. 1251, et seq.
(2) "Accidental discharge" means any discharge of pollutants which occurs on a one-time basis, generally as the result of abnormal conditions or a spill. Accidental discharges may also constitute slug loads as defined below.
(3) "Approval authority" means the Director of the Ohio EPA provided that Ohio is an NPDES state with an approved State Pretreatment Program, otherwise the Administrator of the USEPA.
(4) "Authorized representative of a user" means an authorized representative of a user as follows:
A. A principal executive officer, of at least the level of vice-president, if the user is a corporation;
B. A general partner or proprietor, if the user is a partnership or proprietorship, respectively;
C. A principal executive officer or director having responsibility for the overall operation of the discharging facility, if the user is a federal, state or local government entity;
D. An officer in significant charge or the base commander, if the user is a military base;
E. A duly authorized representative of the individual designated above if such representative is responsible for the overall operation of the facilities from which the discharge originates and a copy of the written authorization is submitted to the City.
(5) "Background domestic strength sewage or domestic waste." Background domestic strength sewage contains up to the following concentrations of pollutants:
BOD5 | 300 mg/l |
SS | 250 mg/l |
Oil and grease | 100 mg/l |
Cadmium | less than 0.001 mg/l |
Chromium (total) | less than 0.05 mg/l |
Copper | 0.044 mg/l |
Cyanide (free) | 0.050 mg/l |
Lead | 0.004 mg/l |
Mercury | Less than 0.0002 mg/l |
Nickel | 0.04 mg/l |
Zinc | 0.09 mg/l |
Ammonia | 20 mg/l |
Phenols | 0.02 mg/l |
Background domestic strength sewerage does not contain detectable concentrations of other toxic pollutants as defined pursuant to Section 307 of the Act.
(6) "Batch discharge" means any discharge from an industrial process which occurs on an intermittent basis and which is not an accidental discharge or a slug load. Batch discharge includes, but is not limited to, tank dumps, tank cleaning solutions and rinses, boiler or cooling tower blowdown, regeneration solutions from water treatment systems, and discharges as a result of equipment maintenance.
(7) "Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)" means the quantity of oxygen used in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedures, in five days at 20 degrees C, expressed as milligrams per liter (mg/l).
(8) "Building sewer" means a sewer conveying wastewater from the premises of a user to the public sewer.
(9) "Bypass" means the intentional diversion of wastes from any portion of a user's facility or treatment facility.
(10) "Categorical pretreatment standard (categorical standard)” means any regulation promulgated by USEPA in accordance with Section 307 (B) and (C) of the Act which applies to specific industrial categories, and which specifies or limits quantities or concentrations or pollutants or pollutant properties which may be discharged or introduced to the POTW by specific industrial users.
(11) "Chemical oxygen demand (COD)" means the oxygen equivalent of the organic matter in a sample susceptible to oxidation by a strong chemical oxidant under standard laboratory procedures expressed in milligrams per liter (mg/l).
(12) "City" means the City of Heath, Ohio, or the City Council of Heath, Ohio or their duly authorized representative.
(13) "Clean wastewater (unpolluted wastewater)" means liquid wastes which meet the criteria established by Ohio EPA for effluents discharged to waters of the State.
(14) "Combined sewer" means a sewer receiving and carrying a combination of sanitary sewage and surface or storm water, with or without industrial wastes.
(15) "Control authority" means the City Utilities Director for the City's approved pretreatment program under the provisions of 40 CFR, Part 403.11.
(16) "Cooling water" means water discharged from any system of condensation, air conditioning, cooling or refrigeration, or to which the only pollutant added is heat. It shall be free of odor and oil, and shall contain no polluting substances.
(17) "Direct discharge" means the discharge of treated or untreated wastewater directly to the POTW via a building sewer.
(18) "Garbage" means solid waste emanating from the preparation, cooking and dispensing of food, and from the handling, storage and sale of food products.
(19) "Grab sample" means a sample taken from a waste stream on a one-time basis with no regard to the flow in the waste stream and without consideration of time.
(20) "Holding tank waste" means any waste from holding tanks or chambers used in connection with vessels, chemical toilets, campers, trailers, or other isolated facilities from which sanitary waste emanate, and sanitary wastes from septic tanks and any waste contained in or picked up by vacuum-pump tank trucks.
(21) "Indirect discharge" means the discharge to, or the introduction of treated or untreated pollutants from any source (including holding tank waste) into the POTW which is not a direct discharge and discharges to groundwater which subsequently infiltrates the POTW.
(22) "Industrial user" means any user who discharges to the treatment works any liquid wastes resulting from processes employed in industry or manufacturing, or from development or beneficiation of any natural resource.
(23) "Industrial wastes" means the solid, liquid or gaseous waste resulting from any industrial processes, manufacturing, trade or business process; or from the development, recovery or processing of natural resources, as distinct from domestic or sanitary wastes.
(24) "Interference" means a discharge which alone or in conjunction with a discharge or discharges from other sources inhibits or disrupts the POTW, its treatment processes and operations, or sludge processes, use or disposal; and therefore causes or contributes to the cause of a violation of any of the POTW's NPDES permit limits, or prevents sewage sludge use or disposal in compliance with the Clean Water Act (Section 4), the Solid Waste Disposal Act (Title II), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Air Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act or state regulations in any state Sludge Management Plan prepared under Subtitle D.
(25) "May" is permissive. "Shall" is mandatory.
(26) "National pretreatment standard (pretreatment standard)" means any regulation containing pollutant discharge limits promulgated by the UPEPA in accordance with Section 307 (B) and (C) of the Act (33 USC 1347) including the prohibited discharge standard defined below.
(27) "National prohibited discharge standard (prohibited discharge standard)" means any regulation developed under the authority of Section 307(B) of the Act.
(28) "New source" means any building, structure, facility or installation from which there is or may be a discharge of pollutants, whose construction begin after the publication of proposed pretreatment standards under Section 307(C) of the Act, provided:
A. The building, structure, facility or installation is constructed at a site on which no other source is located; or
B. The building, structure, facility or installation totally replaces the process or production equipment that causes the discharge of pollutants in an existing source; or
C. The production or wastewater generating processes of the building, structure, facility or installation are substantially independent of an existing source at the same site.
Construction on a site at which an existing source is located shall be considered a modification if the construction does not create a new building, structure, facility or installation which meets the criteria of a new source, but otherwise alters, replaces or adds to the existing process or production equipment.
(29) "New user" means any user whose discharge commences after the effective date of this chapter provided that construction also commences after the effective date of this chapter.
(30) "NPDES permit" means a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit issued pursuant to Section 402 of the Act.
(31) "Ohio EPA" means the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, or where appropriate, a designation for the Director or other fully authorized official of that agency.
(32) "Operation and maintenance (O&M)" means those functions that result in expenditures during the useful life of the POTW for materials, labor, utilities and other items, including periodic equipment replacement, which are necessary for managing and for which such works were designed and constructed.
(33) "Operation and maintenance cost" means all expense resulting from operation and maintenance of the POTW.
(34) "Pass through" means a discharge which exits the POTW into the waters of the State in quantities or concentrations which, alone or in conjunction with a discharge or discharges from other sources, causes or contributes to the cause of a violation of any requirement of the POTW's NPDES permit, including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation.
(35) "Person" means any individual, partnership, copartnership, firm, company, municipal or private corporation, group, association, society, joint stock company, trust, estate, institution, enterprise, governmental entity or any other legal entity, or their legal representatives, agents or assigns. The masculine gender shall include the feminine and the singular shall include the plural where indicated by context.
(36) "pH" means the logarithm (base 10) of the reciprocal of the concentration of hydrogen ions in grams per liter of solution. Low values (0 to 6.9) indicate the presence of acids or acid-forming salts; high values (7.1 to 14) indicate the presence of alkalies or alkaline-forming salts; pH 7.0 is neutral.
(37) "Pollutant" means any dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, petroleum products, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discharged equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt, and industrial, municipal and agricultural waste discharged into or added to water.
(38) "Pollution" means the man-made or man-induced alteration of the chemical, physical, biological and radiological integrity of water.
(39) "Premises" means any parcel of real estate or portion of real estate including any improvements, determined by the Utilities Director to be a single user for purposes of receiving, using and paying for services.
(40) "Pretreatment" means the reduction in the amount of pollutants; the elimination of pollutants; or the alteration of the nature of pollutant properties in wastewater to a less harmful state prior to, or in lieu of, discharging or otherwise introducing pollutants to the POTW. The reduction or alteration can be obtained by physical, chemical or biological processes, process changes or other means, except as prohibited by 40 CFR Section 403.6(d).
(41) "Pretreatment requirements" means any substantive or procedural requirement related to pretreatment, other than a categorical pretreatment standard imposed on a user.
(42) "Public sewer" means a sewer owned and operated by the City.
(43) "Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW)" means a treatment works as defined in Section 212 of the Act, owned by the City, and including any sewers that convey wastewater to the wastewater treatment plant. For this chapter, POTW also includes any sewers that convey wastewaters to the wastewater treatment plant from persons outside the City who are, by contract or agreement with the City, users of the City's treatment works.
(44) "Replacement cost" means expenditures for obtaining and installing equipment, accessories or appurtenances which are necessary during the useful life of the treatment works to maintain the capacity and performance for which these works were designed and constructed.
(45) "Sewage (wastewater)" means a combination of water-carried industrial waste, sanitary sewage or any other waste, together with any ground, surface and storm water that may be present.
(46) "Sanitary sewer" means a sewer which carries sanitary sewage and/or industrial wastes from residences, business establishments, institutions and industrial establishments contributed by reason of human occupancy. Sanitary sewer includes both building sewers and public sewers.
(47) "Significant Industrial User (SIU)" means any user of the POTW where the user:
A. Is subject to categorical pretreatment standards;
B. Discharges 18,750 gallons per day or more of wastewater;
C. Contributes a wastewater which makes up five percent (5%) or more of the average dry weather hydraulic or pollutant capacity of the wastewater treatment plant;
D. Has a discharge, which in the judgment of the Utilities Director, has a reasonable potential to adversely affect or to cause pass through and/or interference at the POTW;
E. Has a discharge to the POTW which has caused or has the potential to cause any violation of the terms and conditions of any permit under which the POTW is operating, including plan approvals; or
F. Has a discharge which has the potential to violate any pretreatment standard or requirement.
The Utilities Director may at any time, on his own initiative or in response to a user petition, determine that a noncategorical user is not a significant industrial user if the user has no reasonable potential to adversely affect the POTW or for violating any pretreatment standard or requirement.
(48) "Significant Industrial User permit (SIU permit or discharge permit)" means the control mechanism issued by the Utilities Director to each SIU which contains specific reporting requirements, discharge limitations, and monitoring frequencies among others.
(49) "Significant noncompliance". Any violation of the provisions of this chapter or of an order or permit issued hereunder is an instance of noncompliance for which the user is liable for enforcement. Instances of significant noncompliance are violations which meet one or more of the following criteria:
A. Violations of discharge limits.
1. Chronic violations. Sixty-six percent (66%) or more of the measurements exceed the same daily maximum limit or the same average limit in a six-month period (any magnitude of exceedance).
2. Technical review criteria (TRC) violations. Thirty-three percent (33%) or more of the measurements equal or exceed the same daily maximum limit or the same average limit by more than the TRC in a six-month period. The TRC for conventional pollutants (BOD, TSS, oil and grease) is 1.4. For all other pollutants except pH the TRC is 1.2.
3. Any other violation of a discharge limit which the Utilities Director believes has caused, alone or in combination with other discharges, interference or pass through or endangered the health of the POTW personnel or the public.
4. Any discharge of a pollutant that has caused imminent endangerment to human health, welfare or to the environment or has resulted in the exercise of the emergency suspension provisions of this chapter.
B. Violations of compliance schedule milestones. Violations by ninety days or more of the dates contained in a compliance schedule.
C. Failure to report. Failure to submit required reports such as those for compliance schedules, self-monitoring data, baseline monitoring reports, and other periodic monitoring reports within thirty days of the date on which the report(s) was due.
D. Failure to report noncompliance. Any failure to report noncompliance accurately and in a timely manner.
E. Other. Any other violation or group of violations that the Utilities Director considers to be significant.
(50) "Substantial change" means any change in the user's discharge which meets one or more of the following criteria:
A. Increase or decrease of twenty percent (20%) or more in the average discharge flow rate and/or volume.
B. Increase in flow or pollutant loading which results in the user contributing five percent (5%) or more of the total average dry weather flow or pollutant loading to the POTW.
C. Increase or decrease of ten percent (10%) or more in the average pollutant loading or concentration.
D. Introduction of a new constituent to the waste stream.
(51) "Slug (slug load)" means any pollutant, including oxygen-demanding pollutants such as BOD, released in a discharge at a flow rate and/or pollutant concentration which will cause interference at the POTW. In no case shall a slug have a flow rate or contain concentrations of pollutants that exceed for any time period longer than fifteen minutes more than five times the average twenty-four hour concentration, quantities or flow during normal operation.
(52) "State" means the State of Ohio.
(53) "Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)" means the classification of users based on the "Standard Industrial Classification Manual," as amended and supplemented, issued by the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, 1972.
(54) "Storm sewer" means a sewer which carries storm and surface waters and drainage, but excludes sanitary sewage and industrial wastes, other than those discharged in compliance with an NPDES permit issued by the State.
(55) "Storm water" means any flow occurring during or following any form of natural precipitation and resulting therefrom.
(56) "Surcharge" means a fee, in addition to the normal user charge, collected to recover costs to treat higher than domestic strength sewage wastes.
(57) "Suspended solids (SS)" means the total suspended matter that either floats on the surface of, or is in suspension or will settle in water, wastewater, sewage or other liquids, and which is removable by laboratory filtering.
(58) "Toxic pollutant" means any pollutant or combination of pollutants listed as toxic in regulations promulgated by USEPA under Section 307(A) of the Act, as well as, any other substance capable of producing a toxic effect.
(59) "Treatment works" means any devices and systems for the storage, treatment, recycling and reclamation of municipal sewage, domestic sewage or liquid industrial wastes, including intercepting sewers, outfall sewers, sewage collection systems, pumping, power and other equipment and their appurtenances, extension, improvement, remodeling, additions and alterations thereof; elements essential to provide a reliable recycled supply, such as standby treatment units and clear well facilities; and any works, including site acquisition of the land that will be an integral part of the treatment process or is used for ultimate disposal of residues resulting from such treatment; or any other method or system for preventing, abating, reducing, storing, treating, separating or disposing of municipal waste or industrial waste including waste in combined storm water and sanitary sewers.
(60) "USEPA" means the United States Environmental Protection Agency, or where appropriate, the Administrator or other fully authorized official of that agency.
(61) "User" means any person that discharges, causes or permits the discharge of wastes and/or wastewater into the POTW.
(62) "User charge" means the charge to each recipient of sewage treatment services within the City’s service area, representing a proportionate share of the costs of operation and maintenance including replacement of all sewage treatment service provided.
(63) "User class." For the purposes of billing service charges only, the users are divided into classes based on the origin of the sewage discharged and by the similarity of the function of such users.
A. "Commercial user" means a commercial business discharging wastewater; users not included in any other class.
B. "Industrial user" means a person who discharges liquid wastes resulting from processes employed in industrial or manufacturing operations, or from the development or beneficiation of natural resources.
C. "Other public authority user" means a special class of user who contributes primarily domestic waste or waste from sanitary conveniences. This class includes hospitals, sanitariums, prisons, charitable institutions, schools or other government users (Federal, State and Local).
D. "Residential user" means a single family or equivalent residences which discharge only wastes from sanitary conveniences.
(64) "Utilities Director (Director)" means the person designated by the City to supervise the operation of the POTW, and who is charged with certain duties and responsibilities by this chapter, or his duly authorized representative.
(65) "Wastes" means sewage and all other substances (liquid, solid, gaseous, radioactive) associated with human habitation or of human or animal origin; or from any producing, manufacturing or processing operation of any nature, including substances placed within containers of any nature prior to, and for purposes of, disposal.
(66) "Wastewater treatment plant (WTP)" means that portion of the POTW designed to provide wastewater treatment.
(67) "Waters of the State" means all streams, lakes, ponds, marshes, watercourses, waterways, wells, springs, reservoirs, aquifers, irrigation systems, drainage systems, and all other bodies or accumulations of water, surface or underground, natural or artificial, public or private, which are contained within, flow through, or border upon the State or any portion thereof.
(68) "Watercourse" means any channel in which a flow of water occurs, either continuously or intermittently.
(69) "Water meter" means a water volume measuring and recording device furnished and/or installed by a user and approved by the City.
(70) "Abbreviations." The following abbreviations shall have the designated meanings:
BOD | Biochemical Oxygen Demand |
CFR | Code of Federal Regulations |
COD | Chemical Oxygen Demand |
°C. | Degrees Centigrade |
CWA | Clean Water Act |
EPA | Environmental Protection Agency |
l | Liter(s) |
mg | Milligram(s) |
mg/l | Milligrams per liter (Parts per million) |
NPDES | National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System |
ORC | Ohio Revised Code |
POTW | Publicly Owned Treatment Works |
RCRA | Resource Conservation and Recovery Act |
SIC | Standard Industrial Classification |
SIU | Significant Industrial User |
SS | Suspended Solids |
SWDA | Solid Waste Disposal Act, 42 USC 6901, et seq. |
USC | United States Code |
u | Micrograms |
ug/l | Micrograms per liter |
(Ord. 106-94. Passed 10-3-94.)