(1) "Act" means the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also known as the Clean Water Act, as amended, 33 U.S.C. 1251, et seq.
(2) "Applicable pretreatment standard" means any pretreatment limit or prohibitive standard, Federal and/or local, deemed to be the most restrictive, with which nondomestic users are required to comply.
(3) "Approval authority" means the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency or the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
(4) "Assigned unit" means the measurement of a connection based on flow. One unit is equal to 1,000 cubic feet (Mcf).
(5) "Authorized representative of industrial user" means:
A. A president, secretary, treasurer or vice president of a corporation, or;
B. A general partner or proprietor if the industrial user is a partnership or proprietorship respectively, or;
C. A duly authorized representative of the above if the authorization is previously made in writing to the Superintendent by a person listed in subsections (5)A. or B. hereof.
(6) "Average monthly discharge limitation" means the highest allowable average of daily discharges over a calendar month, calculated as the sum of all daily discharges measured during a calendar month divided by the number of daily discharges measured during the month.
(7) "Average weekly discharge limitation" means the highest allowable average of daily discharges over a calendar week, calculated as the sum of all daily discharges measured during a calendar week divided by the number of daily discharges measured during that week.
(8) "Beneficial uses" includes, but is not limited to, domestic, municipal, agricultural and industrial use, power generation, recreation, aesthetic enjoyment, navigation and the preservation and enhancement of fish, wildlife and other aquatic resources or reserves, and other uses, both tangible and intangible, as specified by State and Federal law.
(9) "Biochemical oxygen demand" (BOD) the measurement of the amount of oxygen utilized by the decomposition of organic material, over a specified time period (usually 5 days) in a wastewater sample; it is used as a measurement of the readily decomposable organic content of a wastewater.
(10) "Building Commissioner" or "Building Administrator" means the Building Commissioner of the City, or his authorized deputy, agent or representative.
(11) "Building drain" means that part of the lowest horizontal piping of a drainage system which receives the discharge from soil, waste and other drainage pipes inside the walls of a building and conveys it to the sewer, beginning outside the inner face of the building wall.
(12) "Building sewer" means the extension from the building drain to the municipal sewer or other place of disposal.
(12.1) "Bypass" means the intentional diversion of wastestreams from any portion of a treatment (or pretreatment) facility.
(13) "Capital cost" means that portion of the cost of the sewage treatment system which is directly attributable to the cost of principal and interest obligations issued to finance acquisition and construction of the wastewater system.
(14) "Chemical oxygen demand" (COD) means the measure of the oxygen-consuming capacity of inorganic and organic matter present in wastewater. COD is expressed as the amount of oxygen consumed in mg/t. Results do not necessarily correlate to the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) because the chemical oxidant may react with substances that bacteria do not stabilize.
(15) "Chlorine requirement" means the amount of chlorine, in parts per million by weight, which must be added to sewage to produce a specified residual chlorine content, or to meet the requirements of some other objectives, in accordance with procedures set forth in Standard Methods as defined in subsection (83) hereof.
(16) "City" means the City of North Olmsted, Ohio.
(17) "City Engineer" means the City Engineer of the City, or his duly authorized agent or representative.
(18) "Commercial user" for purposes of system charges, means any aggregation of space, office, laundry, restaurant, stores, shops, apartments and other like units, which is equipped with one or more water fixtures draining into the wastewater disposal system, separate and distinct from other users of service. In office buildings or other premises containing more than one tenant, only those tenants shall be classified as users of service who occupy space equipped with a distinct opening or fixture or set of fixtures for the use of water separately from other tenants and with waste draining into the water disposal system.
(19) "Compatible pollutant" means the BOD, TSS, pH and fecal coliform bacteria, plus additional pollutants identified in the City's NPDES permit if the treatment works was designed to treat such pollutants, and in fact does remove such pollutants to a substantial degree.
(20) "Composite sample" should contain a minimum of eight discrete samples taken at equal time intervals over the compositing period or proportional to the flow rate over the compositing period. More than the minimum number of discrete samples will be required where the wastewater loading is highly variable.
(21) "Control manhole" means a structure which provides access to a building sewer. A control manhole may be used as an inspection chamber and may contain a certain testing equipment.
(22) "Cooling water" means the water discharge from any use such as air-conditioning, cooling or refrigeration, or during which the only constituent added to the water is heat.
(23) "Daily discharge" means the discharge of a pollutant measured during a calendar day or any twenty-four hour period that reasonably represents the calendar for purposes of sampling.
(24) "Easement" means an acquired legal right of the specific use of land owned by others.
(25) "U.S. Environmental Protection Agency" or "EPA" means the United States Environmental Protection Agency and may also be used, where appropriate, as a designation for the administrator or other duly authorized official of such agency.
(26) "Fats, oils, and grease" ("FOG") means any substance such as a vegetable or animal product that is used in, or is a byproduct of, the cooking or food preparation process, and that turns or may turn viscous or solidifies with a change in temperature or other conditions.
(27) "Fecal coliform" means any number of organisms common to the intestinal tract of man and animals, whose presence in sanitary sewage is an indicator of pollution.
(28) "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.
(29) "Garbage" means the residue from the preparation and dispensing of food, and from the handling, storage and sale of produce.
(30) "Government user" means any user discharging wastewater from premises utilized by public political units, including Federal, State, County and City units.
(31) "Grab sample" means a sample which is 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.
(32) "Grease and oil" means a group of substances including hydrocarbons, fatty acids, soaps, fats, waxes, oils or any other material that is extracted by a solvent from an acidified sample and that is not volatilized during the laboratory test procedures. Greases and oils are defined by the method of their determination in accordance with Standard Methods as explained in subsection (83) hereof.
(33) "Grease and oil of animal and vegetable origin" means substances that are of a less readily biodegradable nature such as are discharged by meatpacking, vegetable oil and fat industries, food processors, canneries and restaurants.
(34) "Grease and oil of mineral origin" means substances that are less readily biodegradable than grease and oil of animal or vegetable origin, and are derived from a petroleum source. Such substances include machinery lubricating oils, gasoline station wastes, petroleum refinery wastes and storage depot wastes.
(35) "Ground garbage" means the residue from the preparation, cooking and dispensing of food that has been shredded to such a degree that all particles will be carried freely in suspension under the flow conditions normally prevailing in public sewers with no particle greater than one-half inch in any dimension.
(36) "Incompatible pollutant" means any pollutant which is not a compatible pollutant as defined in subsection (19) hereof.
(37) "Industrial user" means a person who discharges to the City's wastewater disposal system liquid, solid or gaseous wastes resulting from the processes employed in industrial or manufacturing activities, or from the development, recovering or processing of any natural source.
(38) "Industrial waste" means any liquid, solid or gaseous substance or form of energy, or combination thereof, resulting from any process of industrial, commercial, governmental and institutional concerns, manufacturing, business, trade or research, including the development, recovery or processing of natural resources, or from sources other than those generating waste as defined in subsection (49) hereof.
(39) "Industrial waste permit" means a formal permit to deposit or discharge industrial waste into any sanitary sewer, as issued by the City.
(40) "Influent" means the water, together with any waste that may be present, flowing into a drain, sewer, receptacle or outlet and then to the sewage treatment plant.
(41) "Institutional user" means any person discharging wastewater from premises serving educational, social or eleemosynary purposes, including, but not limited to, private schools, hospitals, nursing homes and charitable organizations.
(42) "Interference" means inhibition or disruption of the sewage treatment processes or operations which contributes to a violation of any requirements of the City's NPDES permit. The term includes prevention of sewage sludge use or disposal by the treatment plant in accordance with Section 405 of the Act (33 U.S.C. 1345) or any criteria, guidelines or regulations developed pursuant to the Solid Waste Disposal Act, the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substance Control Act or more stringent State criteria, including those contained in any State sludge management plan prepared pursuant to Title IV or the Solid Waste Disposal Act, applicable to the method of disposal or use employed by the City.
(43) "Maximum daily discharge limitations" means the highest allowable daily discharge.
(44) "Municipal sewer" means one in which all owners of abutting properties have equal rights, and which is controlled by the City.
(45) "National Categorical Pretreatment Standard" or "Categorical Pretreatment Standard" means national pretreatment standards as promulgated by the U.S.E.P.A. specifying quantities or concentrations of pollutants, or pollutant properties, which may be discharged or introduced into the City's wastewater disposal system by specific industrial dischargers or industrial users.
(46) "National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit" means a permit issued by the State or EPA pursuant to the Act for the purpose of regulating the discharge of sewage, industrial wastes and other wastes under the authority of Section 402 of the Act, into the navigable waters of the United States.
(47) "Natural outlet" means any outlet into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake or other body of surface or ground water.
(48) "New source" means any source of wastewater from which the discharge of wastewater is commenced after the publication of regulations prescribing an applicable National Categorical Pretreatment Standard or any building, structure, facility or installation meeting the requirement for a new source of Sec. 403.3 of the "General Pretreatment Regulations for Existing and New Sources", and:
A. It is constructed at a site at which no other source of discharge to the City's wastewater disposal system is located, or
B. It totally replaces the process of production equipment that causes the discharge of pollutants at any existing source, or
C. Its processes are substantially independent of an existing source at the same site.
(49) "Normal domestic sewage" means wastewater characterized by wastes created in the preparation of foods, bathing, laundry facilities and sanitary facilities, i.e., resulting from normal living functions conducted in a domicile. Normal characteristics are considered to be a loading of 200/1 BOD and 250/1 TSS per capita.
(50) "On-site treatment facilities" means any sewage treatment facilities located at the site where wastewater is being generated, when such facilities are for the purpose of treating or pretreating the generated wastewater before it enters the public sewer.
(51) "Operation and maintenance costs" means the current, reasonable and necessary costs of operation and maintenance of the wastewater disposal system, paid or incurred, determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, including replacement costs, but excluding payments of principal and of interest on obligations issued to finance the costs of acquisition and construction of the wastewater disposal system.
(52) "Parts per million (ppm)" means a weight-to-weight ratio. Milligrams per liter (mg/1) is a synonymous term.
(53) "Pass through" means the discharge of pollutants through the POTW into the receiving stream in quantities or concentrations which are a cause in whole, or in part, of a violation of any requirement of the POTW's NPDES permit (including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation).
(54) "Person" means any and all persons, natural or artificial, including any individual, firm, company, Municipal or private corporation, partnership, copartnership, joint stock company, trust, association, institution, enterprise, governmental agency, the State of Ohio, the United States of America or other legal entity, or their representatives, agents or assigns. The masculine gender shall include the feminine, the singular shall include the plural where indicated by the context.
(55) "pH" means the logarithm, base ten, of the reciprocal of the hydrogen ion concentration expressed in moles per liter. It shall be determined by one of the procedures outlined in Standard Methods, as defined in subsection (83) hereof.
(56) "Pollutant" means the dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, wastewater, garbage, wastewater sludge, munition, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, Municipal, commercial, domestic and agricultural waste discharged into water.
(57) "Pollution" means an alteration of the quality of the waters of the State by waste to a degree which unreasonably affects such waters for beneficial uses or facilities which serve such beneficial uses. Pollution is the manmade or man-induced alteration of the chemical, physical, biological and radiological integrity of water.
(58) "Premises" means any piece of real estate having one or more sewers which may be connected either individually or through a common sewer and directly or indirectly to the wastewater disposal system.
(59) "Pretreatment" means the process of reducing the amount of pollutants, eliminating pollutants or altering the nature of pollutant properties in wastewater introducing such pollutants into the City's wastewater disposal system. The reduction, elimination or alteration may be obtained by physical, chemical or biological processes, process changes or other means, except as prohibited by Chapters 911 to 927.
(60) "Pretreatment Coordinator" means the person in charge of the City's industrial pretreatment program, and any other provision of Chapter 917 or responsible for other duties as assigned by the Superintendent.
(61) "Pretreatment requirements" means any substantive or procedural requirements related to pretreatment, other than a national pretreatment standard imposed on an industrial user.
(62) "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 conditions normally prevailing in Municipal sewers, with no particle greater than one-half inch in any dimension.
(63) "Publicly owned treatment works" (POTW) means all publicly owned, City owned, facilities for the collection, treatment and disposal of wastewater.
(64) "Public sewers" means a sewer provided by or subject to the jurisdiction of the City. It also includes sewers within or outside the City boundaries that serve one or more persons and ultimately discharge to the City sanitary sewer system, even though these sewers may not have been constructed with City funds.
(65) "Receiving stream" means the watercourse, stream or body of water receiving the waters finally discharged from the wastewater treatment plant.
(66) "Reimbursable expenses" means those costs incurred by the City which are passed on to the users of the POTW on whose behalf the expenses were incurred. Included will be such items as sampling costs and laboratory fees.
(67) "Replacement" means any 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 such works were designed and constructed. Also known as "equipment replacement costs."
(68) "Residential user" for the purposes of system charges, means any aggregation of space or area occupied as a residence and generating domestic wastewater. In multi-use premises, only those divisions of the building utilized as domicile will be considered residential users.
(69) "Sanitary sewer" means a sewer which carries wastewater and to which storm, surface and ground waters are not intentionally admitted.
(70) "Service Director" means the Director of Public Service of the City of North Olmsted, or his authorized deputy, agent or representative.
(71) "Sewage" means the water-carried human, animal and household wastes in public or private drain, and may include ground water infiltration, surface drainage and industrial wastes.
(72) "Sewage disposal system" means all facilities for collection, pumping, treating and disposing of sewage and industrial waste, and it includes sewerage, as well as the sewage treatment facilities. This shall not include plumbing inside or in connection with building services or service sewers from a building to the street lateral.
(73) "Sewage treatment plant" means an assemblage of devices, structures and equipment for treatment of sewage and industrial waste.
(74) "Sewer" means a pipe or conduit for carrying wastewater.
(75) "Sewerage" means the system of sewers and appurtenances for the collection, transportation and pumping of sewage and industrial waste.
(76) "Sewer service charge" means the charge imposed upon all users receiving services from the City's sewage disposal system in a total amount sufficient to pay the costs of the system. Sewer service charge may consist of a capital charge, a user charge and a surcharge.
(77) "Shall" is mandatory; "may" is permissive.
(78) "Significant industrial user" means:
A. Except as provided in subsection (78)B. hereof, "significant industrial user" includes:
1. All industrial users subject to categorical pretreatment standards; and
2. Any other industrial user that discharges an average of 25,000 gallons per day or more of process wastewater to the POTW; contributes a process wastestream which makes up five percent (5%) or more of the average dry weather hydraulic or organic capacity of the POTW treatment plant; or has a reasonable potential, in the opinion of the Service Director, to adversely affect the POTW's operation or for violating any pretreatment standard or requirement.
B. The Service Director may, at any time, on his own initiative or in response to a petition received from an industrial user, determine that a noncategorical industrial user is not a significant industrial user if the industrial user has no reasonable potential to adversely affect the POTW's operation or for violating any pretreatment standard or requirement.
(79) "Significant noncompliance" or "SNC" means a condition in which an industrial user is, at any time during a twelve-month period, in violation of one or more of the following criteria:
A. Chronic violations of wastewater discharge limits, defined here as those in which sixty-six percent (66%) or more of all of the measurements taken during a six-month period exceed (by any magnitude) the daily maximum limit or the average limit for the same pollutant parameter.
B. Technical review criteria (TRC) violations, defined here as those in which thirty-three percent (33%) or more of all of the measurements for each pollutant parameter taken during a six-month period equal or exceed the product of the daily maximum limit or the average limit multiplied by the applicable TRC (TRC=1.4 for BOD, TSS, fats, oil and grease, and 1.2 for all other pollutants except pH).
C. Any other violation of a pretreatment effluent limit (daily maximum or longer term average) that the Service Director has determined caused, alone or in combination with other discharges, interference or pass through (including endangering the health of POTW personnel or the general public).
D. Any discharge of a pollutant that has caused imminent endangerment of human health, welfare or to the environment or has resulted in the POTW's exercise of emergency authority to halt or prevent such a discharge.
E. Failure to meet, within ninety days after a schedule 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 forty-five (45) days after the due date, required reports such as baseline monitoring reports, 90-day compliance reports, periodic self-monitoring reports, and reports on compliance with compliance schedules;
G. Failure to accurately report noncompliance.
H. Any other violation or group of violations which the Service Director determines will or has adversely affected the operation or implementation of the City's pretreatment program.
(80) "Sludge" means any solid, semi-solid or liquid waste generated by a Municipal, commercial or industrial wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant or air pollution control facility, or any other waste having similar characteristics and effects as defined in standards issued under Section 402, 405 of the Act and in the applicable requirements under Sections 3001, 3004 and 4004 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act (PL 94-580).
(81) "Slug". A slug discharge is any discharge of a non-routine, episodic nature, including but not limited to an accidental spill or a non-customary batch discharge that has a reasonable potential to cause interference or pass through, or in any way violate the POTW's regulations, local limits or permit conditions.
(82) "Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)" means the classification of industries pursuant to the Standard Industrial Classification Manual issued by the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, 1972, assigning a code, SIC Code, denoting the manufacturing process.
(83) "Standard Methods" means the laboratory procedures set forth in the most recent edition of Standard Methods for the Examination of Water, Sewage and Industrial Wastes, published jointly by the American Public Health Association, the American Water Works Association and the Federation of Sewage and Industrial Wastes Associations.
(84) "Storm sewer" or "storm drain" means a public sewer and public ditch which carries storm, surface and ground water drainage, but excludes sewage and industrial wastes.
(85) "Stormwater runoff" means that portion of rainfall that is drained into the sewers.
(86) "Superintendent" means the person in charge of the wastewater treatment system, or his authorized deputies, agents or representatives, as may be designated by him to supervise and enforce the provisions hereof.
(87) "Surcharge" means the assessment in addition to the service charge which is levied on those persons whose wastes are greater in strength than the concentration values established as representative of normal sewage.
(88) "Suspended Solids" (TSS) means solids that either float on the surface of, or are in suspension or will settle 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, as defined in subsection (83) hereof.
(89) "Total solids" means the sum of suspended and dissolved solids.
(90) "Toxic amounts" means concentrations of any pollutant or combination of pollutants which, upon exposure to or assimilation into any organism, will cause adverse effects such as cancer, genetic mutations and physiological manifestations, as defined in standards issued pursuant to Section 307(a) of the Act.
(91) "Toxic pollutants" means those substances referred to in Section 307(a) of the Act as well as any other known potential substances capable of producing toxic effects.
(92) "Treatment plant" (See sewage treatment plant).
(93) "Unpolluted water" or "unpolluted liquid" means any water or liquid containing none of the following: free or emulsified grease or oil; acids or alkalides; substances that may impart taste, odor or color characteristics; toxic or poisonous substances in suspension, colloidal state or solution; odorous or otherwise obnoxious gases. It shall not contain more than 2,500 parts per million by weight of dissolved solids and no more than ten parts per million each of TSS or BOD. Analytical determinations shall be made in accordance with procedures set forth in Standard Methods as defined in subsection (83) hereof.
(94) "Upset" or "operating upset" means an exceptional incident in which a discharger unintentionally and temporarily is in a state of noncompliance with the standards set forth in this chapter hereto due to factors beyond the reasonable control of the discharger, and excluding noncompliance to the extent caused by operational error, improperly designed treatment facilities, inadequate treatment facilities, lack of preventive maintenance or careless or improper operation thereof.
(95) "User" means a person that discharges, causes or permits the discharge of wastewater into the sewerage system.
(96) "User charge" means the fee imposed upon all users serviced by the sewage disposal works of the City in a total amount sufficient to pay the costs of operation and maintenance, including the costs of replacement of equipment in the wastewater disposal system.
(97) "User class" means a group of users that discharges, causes or permits the discharge of wastewater with similar characteristics into the sewerage system. All users classified as commercial, governmental, industrial, institutional and residential users comprise, respectively, commercial user class, governmental user class, industrial user class, institutional user class and residential user class.
(98) "Volatile organic matter" means the material in the sewage solids transformed to gases or vapors when heated at 500 degrees Centigrade for fifteen to twenty minutes.
(99) "Wastewater" means the liquid and water-carried industrial or domestic wastes from dwellings, commercial buildings, industrial facilities and institutions, together with any ground water that may be present, whether treated or untreated, which is discharged into or permitted to enter the City's wastewater disposal system.
(100) "Wastewater treatment plant" (See sewage treatment plant).
(101) "Watercourse" means a channel in which a flow of water occurs, whether continuously or intermittently.
(102) "Waters of the State" means all streams, lakes, ponds, 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.
(Ord. 2017-83. Passed 12-19-17.)