For the purpose of this chapter, certain rules or word usage apply to the text as
follows:
(a) "City" means the City of Lancaster, Ohio or its duly designated representative.
(b) "Channel" means a natural stream that conveys water; a ditch or channel excavated for the flow of water.
(c) "Development area" means any contiguous area owned by one person or operated as one development unit and used or being developed for nonfarm commercial, industrial, residential or other nonfarm purposes upon which earth- disturbing activities are planned or under way.
(d) "District" means the Fairfield Soil and Water Conservation District.
(e) "Ditch" means an excavation either dug or natural for the purposes of drainage or irrigation with the intermittent flow.
(f) "Drainageway" means an area of concentrated water flow other than river, stream, ditch or grassed waterway.
(g) "Dumping" means leveling, pushing, piling, throwing, unloading or placing.
(h) "Earth-disturbing activity" means any grading, excavating, filling or other alteration of the earth's surface where natural or manmade ground cover is destroyed and which may result in or contribute to erosion and sediment pollution.
(i) "Earth material" means soil, sediment, rock, sand, gravel and organic material or residue associated with or attached to the soil.
(j) “Erosion" means
(1) The wearing away of the land surface by running water, wind, ice, or other geological agents including such processes as gravitational creep.
(2) Detachment and movement of soil or rock fragments by wind, water, ice or gravity.
(3) "Erosion" includes
A. "Accelerated erosion": erosion occurring much more rapid than normal, natural or geologic erosion, primarily as the result of the influence of the activities of man.
B. "Floodplain erosion": abrading and wearing away of the overbank areas situated on either side of a channel due to overflow flooding.
C. "Gully erosion": the erosion process whereby water accumulates in narrow channels during and immediately after rainfall or snow or ice melt and actively removes the soil from this narrow area to considerable depths such that the channel would not be obliterated by normal smoothing or tillage operations.
D. "Natural erosion": geologic erosion or the wearing away of the earth's surface by water, ice or other natural environmental conditions of climate, vegetation, etc., undisturbed by man.
E. "Normal erosion": the gradual erosion of land used by man which does not greatly exceed natural erosion.
F. "Rill erosion": an erosion process in which numerous small channels only several inches deep are formed, occurs mainly on recently disturbed soils.
G. "Sheet erosion": the removal of a fairly uniform layer of soil from the land surface by wind or runoff water.
(k) "Grassed waterway" means a broad or shallow natural course or constructed channel covered with erosion-resistant grasses or similar vegetative cover and used to conduct surface water.
(l) "Landside" means the rapid downward and outward movement of large rock matter and/or soil mass under the influence of gravity in which the movement of the soil mass occurs along an interior surface of sliding.
(m) "Person" means an individual, corporation, partnership, joint venture, agency, unincorporated association, municipal corporation, County or State agency, the Federal Government, or any combination thereof.
(n) "Public waters" means water within rivers, streams, ditches and lakes except private ponds and lakes wholly within single properties or waters leaving property on which surface water originates.
(o) "Sediment" means solid material both mineral and organic, that is in suspension, is being transported or has been moved from its site of origin by wind, water, gravity or ice, and has come to rest on the earth's surface above or below sea level.
(p) "Sediment basin" means a barrier, dam or other suitable detention facility built across an area of waterflow to settle and retain sediment carried by the runoff waters.
(q) "Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWP3)" means a written description and graphical exhibit, acceptable to the City of methods for controlling sediment pollution from accelerated erosion on a disturbed development area of one or more contiguous acres or smaller areas that are part of a larger development over one acre.
(r) "Sediment pollution" means failure to use management or conservation practice to abate wind or water erosion of the soil or to abate degradation of the waters of the State by soil sediment in conjunction with land grading, excavating, filling or other soil-disturbing activities.
(s) "Slip" means a landslide as defined in subsection (1) hereof.
(t) "Sloughing" means a slip or downward movement of an extended layer of soil resulting from the undermining action of water or the earth-disturbing activity of man.
(u) "Soil loss" means soil relocation on or removed from a given site by the force of erosion and redeposit of the soil at another site on land or in a body of water.
(v) "Storm frequency" means the statistical average time within which a storm of a given duration and intensity can be expected to be equaled or exceeded.
(w) "Stream" means a body of water running or flowing on the earth's surface or channel in which such flow occurs. Flow may be seasonally intermittent.
(x) "Topsoil" means surface and upper surface soils which presumably are darker colored, fertile soil materials, ordinarily rich in organic matter or humus debris.
(y) "100 year floodplain" means land susceptible to being inundated by water from a base flood that has a one percent or greater chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year.
(z) "Clearing" means the removal of trees, brush, and other unwanted material in order to develop land for other uses, or to provide access for site work.
(aa) "Best Management Practice (BMP)" means a range of management procedures, schedules of activities, prohibitions on practices and other management practices which have been demonstrated to effectively control the quality and/or quality of water runoff and which are compatible with the planned land use.
(bb) Municipal separate storm sewer system "(MS4)" refers to a storm sewer system owned and operated by the Municipality in which it is located. These storm sewer systems may discharge into local rivers and streams and are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce the amount of pollutants that reach these bodies of water from the storm sewer system.
(Ord. 4-14. Passed 4-14-14.)