As used in this chapter:
(a) “Channel” means a natural stream that conveys water, or a ditch or channel excavated for the flow of water.
(b) “Development area” means any contiguous area owned by one person or operated as one development unit, which is used or is being developed for non-farm commercial, industrial, residential or other non-farm purposes, upon which earth-distributing activities are planned or underway.
(c) “District” means a soil and water conservation district, organized under Ohio R.C. Chapter 1515.
(d) “Ditch” means an excavation which was either dug or is natural for the purpose of drainage or irrigation with intermittent flow.
(e) “Drainage way” means an area of concentrated water flow other than a river, stream, ditch or grassed waterway.
(f) “Dumping” means grading, pushing, piling, throwing, unloading or placing.
(g) “Earth-disturbing activity” means any grading, excavating, filling or other alteration of the earth’s surface, where natural or man-made ground cover is destroyed and which may result in or contribute to erosion and sediment pollution.
(h) “Earth material” means soil, sediment, rock, sand, gravel and organic material or residue associated with or attached to the soil.
(i) “Erosion” means:
(1) The wearing away of 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; and
(3) Specifically:
A. Accelerated erosion, which is an erosion much more rapid than normal, natural or geologic erosion, primarily as a result of the influence of the activities of man.
B. Flood plain erosion, which is an abrading and wearing away of the nearly level land situation on either side of a channel due to overflow flooding.
C. Gully erosion, which is 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), which is a 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, which is the gradual erosion of land used by man which does not greatly exceed natural erosion.
F. Rill erosion, which is an erosion process in which numerous small channels only several inches deep are formed, and which occurs mainly on recently disturbed soils.
G. Sheet erosion, which is the removal of a fairly uniform layer of soil from the land surface by wind or runoff water.
(j) “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.
(k) “Landslide” means the rapid downward and outward movement of large rock material and/or soil mass under the influence of gravity in which the movement of the soil mass occurs along an interior surface of sliding.
(l) “Person” means any individual, corporation, partnership, joint venture, agency, unincorporated association, municipal corporation, County or State agency or the Federal Government, or any combination thereof.
(m) “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.
(n) “Sediment” means solid material, both mineral and organic, that is in suspension, is being transported, or has been moved from its site or origin by wind, water, gravity or ice, and has come to rest on the earth’s surface above or below sea level.
(o) “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.
(p) “Sediment control plan” means a written description, acceptable to the approving agency, of methods for controlling sediment pollution from accelerated erosion on a development area of five or more contiguous acres or from erosion caused by accelerated runoff from a development area of five or more contiguous acres.
(q) “Sediment pollution” means failure to use management or conservation practices to abate wind or water erosion of the soil or to abate the degradation of the waters of the State by soil sediment in conjunction with land grading, excavating, filling or other soil-disturbing activities on land used or being developed for non-farm commercial, industrial or residential purposes or other non-farm purposes.
(r) “Slip” means landslide, as defined above.
(s) “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.
(t) “Soil loss” means soil relocated on or removed from a given site by the forces of erosion and the redeposit of the soil at another site on land or in a body of water.
(u) “Storm frequency” means the average period of time within which a storm of a given duration and intensity can be expected to be equaled or exceeded.
(v) “Stream” means a body of water running or flowing on the earth’s surface or a channel in which such flow occurs. Flow may be seasonally intermittent.
(w) “Topsoil” means surface and upper surface soils which presumably are darker colored, fertile soil materials, ordinarily rich in organic matter or humus debris.
(Ord. 61-1987. Passed 9-14-87.)