(A) No person, firm or corporation shall establish or permit to be established, or maintain or permit to be maintained any connection whereby a private, auxiliary or emergency water supply other than the regular public water supply of the city may enter the supply or distributing system of the city. Any private, auxiliary or emergency supplies and the method of connection and use of the supply shall have the approval of the water system, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Department of Health.
(B) No person, firm, or corporation shall establish or permit to be established, or maintain or permit to be maintained any direct connection between the public water supply of the city and any potentially hazardous, toxic or injurious manufacturing process or any drainage or sewer system.
(C) The City Plumbing Inspector, Water System Superintendent, or their authorized representatives, after verbal or written notification, shall have the right to enter at any reasonable time any property served by a connection to the public water supply or distributing system of the city for the purpose of inspecting the piping system or systems thereof. The owner, lessees or occupants of any property served shall furnish to the Plumbing Inspector or Water System Superintendent any information which they may request regarding the piping system or systems or water use on the property. The refusal of this information shall, within the discretion of the Plumbing Inspector or Water System Superintendent, be deemed evidence of improper connections as provided in these rules and regulations.
(D) The Water System Superintendent is hereby authorized and directed to discontinue, after reasonable written notice to the occupant thereof, the water service to any property wherein any connection in violation of these rules and regulations is known to exist, and to take any other precautionary measures as he or she may deem necessary to eliminate any danger of contamination of the public water supply. Water service to the property shall not be restored until these conditions shall have been eliminated or corrected in compliance with the provisions of these rules and regulations.
(E) An approved backflow prevention device shall be installed on each service line to a consumer's water system serving premises where, in the judgment of the Plumbing Inspector or Water System Superintendent, actual or potential hazards to the public potable water system exist.
(F) An approved backflow prevention device shall be installed on each service line to a consumer's water system serving premises where any of the following conditions exist:
(1) Premises having an auxiliary water supply;
(2) Premises on which any substance is handled in such a fashion as to create an actual or potential hazard to the public potable water system. This shall include premises having sources or systems containing process fluids or waters originating from the public potable water system which are no longer under the sanitary control of the Water System Superintendent;
(3) Premises having internal cross-connections that, in the judgment of the Plumbing Inspector or Water System Superintendent, are not correctable, or intricate plumbing arrangements which make it impractical to determine whether or not cross-connections exist;
(4) Premises where, because of security requirements or other prohibitions or restrictions, it is impossible or impractical to make a complete cross-connection survey; or
(5) Premises having a repeated history of cross-connections being established or re-established.
(G) An approved backflow prevention device shall be installed on each service line to a consumer's water system serving, but not necessarily limited to, the following types of facilities, unless the Plumbing Inspector and the Water System Superintendent determine that no actual or potential hazard to the public potable water system exists:
(1) Hospitals, mortuaries, clinics, nursing homes;
(2) Laboratories;
(3) Sewage treatment plants, sewage pumping stations or storm water pumping stations;
(4) Food or beverage processing plants;
(5) Chemical plants;
(6) Metal plating industries;
(7) Petroleum processing or storage plants;
(8) Radioactive material processing plants or nuclear reactors;
(9) Car washes; and
(10) Others specified by the Plumbing Inspector or Water System Superintendent.
(H) The type of backflow protection required under these rules and regulations shall depend on the degree of hazard which exists as follows:
(1) An approved air gap separation shall be installed where the public potable water system may be contaminated with substances that could cause a severe health hazard.
(2) An approved air gap separation or an approved reduced pressure principal backflow prevention device shall be installed where the public potable water system may be contaminated with a substance that could cause a system or health hazard.
(3) An approved air gap separation or an approved reduced pressure principle backflow prevention device or an approved double check valve assembly shall be installed where the public potable water system may be polluted with substances that could cause a pollution hazard not dangerous to health.
(I) Backflow prevention devices required by these rules and regulations shall be installed to the specifications of, and at no cost to, the water system.
(J) It shall be the duty of the consumer at any premises on which backflow prevention devices required by these rules and regulations are installed to have inspections, tests and overhaul made in accordance with the following schedule or more often when inspections indicate a need.
(1) Air separation shall be inspected at the time of installation and at least once every 12 months thereafter.
(2) Double check valve assemblies shall be inspected and tested for tightness at the time of installation and at least every 12 months thereafter. They shall be dismantled, inspected internally, cleaned, and repaired whenever needed and at least every 30 months.
(K) Inspections, tests, and overhaul of backflow prevention devices shall be at the expense of the consumer, and shall be performed only by persons approved by the water system as qualified to inspect, test, and overhaul the devices.
(L) Backflow prevention devices found to be defective shall be repaired by the consumer without delay.
(M) The consumer must maintain a complete record of each backflow prevention device from purchase to retirement. This record shall include a comprehensive listing of all tests, inspections, and repairs. Records shall be submitted to the Plumbing Inspector or Water System Superintendent when requested.
(N) Backflow prevention devices shall not be bypassed, made inoperative, removed, or otherwise made ineffective without written authorization of the Water System Superintendent.
(‘97 Code, § 54.43) (Ord. 31-83, passed 11-7-83; Am. Ord. 20-12, passed 10-16-12; Am. Ord. 11-22, passed 11-1-22) Penalty, see § 10.99