All terms not defined herein shall be defined as have meaning as set for the in title 40 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations. Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, as used in this chapter:
(a) "Ammonia nitrogen" means the measure of the ammonia form of nitrogen in a sample in accordance with procedures set forth in 40 CFR 136.
(b) "BOD" (denoting biochemical oxygen demand) means the measure of the oxygen equivalent of that portion of the organic matter in a sample that is susceptible to chemical oxidation, in accordance with procedures set forth in 40 CFR 136.
(c) "Charges" are specifically defined as follows:
(1) "Debt service charge" means the amount to be paid each billing period for payment of interest, principal and coverage of outstanding indebtedness.
(2) "Replacement" 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 such works were designed and constructed.
(3) "Sewer fund" means the principal accounting designation for all revenues received in the operation of the sewerage system.
(4) "Surcharge" means the assessment, in addition to the basic user charge and debt service charge, which is levied on those persons whose wastes are greater in strength than the concentration values established in Section 1044.06.
(5) "Useful life" means the estimated period during which the collection system and/or treatment works will be operated.
(6) "User charge" means that amount, paid by each consumer connected to the sanitary sewerage system, proportionate to the service provided. It shall be a charge levied on users of the treatment works to cover the cost of operation, maintenance and replacement.
(7) "Wastewater service charge" means the charge per quarter or month levied on all users of the wastewater facilities. The service charge shall be computed as outlined in Section 1044.06.
(d) "City Engineer" means the City Engineer of the City of Vandalia.
(e) "District" means the Tri-Cities North Regional Wastewater Authority.
(f) "Garbage" means solid wastes from the domestic and commercial preparation, cooking and dispensing of food, and from the handling, storage and sale of produce, excluding paper products.
(g) "Industrial wastes" means liquid wastes from industrial manufacturing processes, as distinct from sanitary sewage or waste from commercial or institutional sources.
(h) "Inspector" means an individual employed by or representing the City whose duties include the issuance of appropriate permits and the performance of inspections under this chapter.
(i) "Natural outlet" means any outlet, including the outlet of storm sewers, into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake or other body of surface or ground water, which outlet does not require an NPDES discharge permit.
(j) "Normal domestic sewage" means the spent water of a community, which may be a combination of the liquid and water-carried wastes from residences and from sanitary conveniences from commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions, together with any ground water, surface water and storm water that may be present.
(k) "NPDES permit" means any permit or equivalent document or requirement issued to regulate the discharge of pollutants pursuant to Section 402 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended.
(l) "Operation, maintenance and replacement" (OM&R) means all costs, direct and indirect (other than debt service), necessary to ensure adequate wastewater treatment on a continuing basis, conforming with related Federal, State and local requirements, and ensuring optional long-term facilities management. These costs include administration and replacement as defined in subsection (c) hereof.
(m) "Person" means any individual, firm, company, association, society, corporation or group.
(n) "pH" means the logarithm of the reciprocal of the hydrogen ion concentration in moles per liter.
(o) "Pollutant" is defined as follows:
(1) "Compatible pollutant" means chemical oxygen demand, biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, pH and fecal coliform bacteria, plus additional pollutants if the publicly owned treatment works was designed to treat such pollutants and, in fact, does remove such pollutants to a substantial degree. Examples of such additional pollutants may include:
A. Total organic carbon;
B. Phosphorus and phosphorus compounds;
C. Nitrogen and nitrogen compounds; and
D. Fats, oils and greases of animal or vegetable origin, except as otherwise prohibited.
(2) "Incompatible pollutant" means any pollutant which is not a compatible pollutant.
(p) "Properly shredded garbage" means 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 flow conditions normally prevailing in public sewers, with no particle greater than one-half inch (1.27 centimeters) in any dimension.
(q) "Sewage" means a combination of water-carried wastes from residences, business buildings, institutions and industrial establishments, together with such ground water, surface and storm water that may be present, but excluding major industrial process wastes.
(r) "Sewage treatment plant" means any arrangement of devices and structures used for treating sewage, and the North Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant of the District.
(s) "Sewage works" means all facilities for collecting, pumping, treating and disposing of sewage.
(t) "Sewer types and appurtenances" are defined as follows:
(1) "Building drain" means that part of the lowest piping of a drainage system which receives the discharge from soil, waste and other drainage pipes inside the walls of the building and conveys it to the building sewer or other approved point of discharge, beginning five feet (1.5 meters) outside the interface of the building wall.
(2) "Building sewer" means the extension from the building drain to the public sewer or other place of disposal.
(3) "Combined sewer" means a sewer which is designed and intended to receive wastewater and storm, surface and ground water drainage.
(4) "Public sewer" means a sewer provided by or subject to the jurisdiction of the City or other public agency. It includes sewers within or outside the City boundaries that serve one or more persons and ultimately discharge into the sanitary sewerage system, even though such sewers may not have been constructed with City funds.
(5) "Sanitary sewer" means a sewer that conveys sewage or industrial wastes, or a combination of both, and into which storm, surface and ground waters or unpolluted industrial wastes are not intentionally admitted.
(6) "Sewer" means a pipe or conduit for conveying sewage or any other waste liquids, including storm, surface and ground water drainage.
(7) "Storm sewer" means a sewer that carries storm, surface and ground water drainage, but excludes sewage and industrial wastes, other than unpolluted cooling water.
(8) "Storm water run-off" means that portion of the precipitation that is drained into the sewers.
(u) "Shall" is mandatory; "may" is permissive.
(v) “Significant noncompliance” meaning is provided in paragraphs (1) through (9) of this section:
(1) Chronic violations of wastewater discharge limits, defined here as those in which 66% or more of all of the measurements taken for the same pollutant parameter at any permitted monitoring point during a six-month period exceed (by any magnitude) a numeric pretreatment standard or requirement, including instantaneous limits.
(2) Technical Review Criteria (TRC) violations, defined here as those in which 33% or more of all of the measurements taken for the same pollutant parameter at any permitted monitoring point during a six-month period equal or exceed the product of the numeric pretreatment standard or requirement including instantaneous limits, multiplied by the applicable TRC (TRC-1.4 for BOD, TSS, fats, oil and grease, and 1.2 for all other pollutants except pH);
(3) Any other violation of a pretreatment standard or requirement as defined by paragraph (N) of rule O.C.3. 745-3-01 of the Ohio administrative Code (daily maximum or longer term average, instantaneous limit, or narrative standard) that the POTW determines has caused, alone or in combination with other discharges, interference or pass through (including endangering the health of POTW personnel or the general public);
(4) Any discharge of a pollutant that has caused imminent endangerment to human health or welfare or to the environment or has resulted in the POTW's exercise of emergency authority to halt or prevent such a discharge;
(5) Failure to meet, within 90 days after the schedule date, a compliance schedule milestone contained in an industrial user permit or enforcement order for starting construction, completing construction, or attaining final compliance;
(6) Failure to provide, within 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, or any other reports required by the POTW;
(7) Failure to accurately report noncompliance; or
(8) Any other violation or group of violations including a violation of BMP's that the POTW determines adversely affects the operation or implementation of the local pretreatment program.
(9) The term "Significant noncompliance" shall be applicable to all Significant Industrial Users (or and other Industrial User that violates paragraphs (3), (4) or (8) or this definition).
(w) "Slug load" is a 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 other way violate the POTW's (Publicly Owned Treatment Works) regulations, local limits or permit conditions.
(x) "Suspended solids" means solids that either float on the surface of, or are suspended in, water, sewage or other liquids, and which are removable by laboratory filtering, in accordance with 40 CFR 136.
(y) "User" means a person using the services of the sewage works in one of the following categories:
(1) "Commercial user" means a user engaged in the purchase or sale of goods, the transaction of business or otherwise rendering a service.
(2) "Government user" means a municipality or governmental subdivision or agency existing under Federal or State statute.
(3) "Industrial user" means a user engaged in a manufacturing or processing activity that discharges a trade or process wastewater as a result of such activity. All industrial users shall promptly notify the City in advance of any substantial changes in the volume or character of pollutants in their discharge, including the listed or characteristic hazardous wastes for which the industrial user has submitted initial notification under 40 CFR 403.12(p).
The City may, with the approval of the subdistrict, at any time, on its 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 to violate any pretreatment standard or requirement.
(4) "Institutional user" means a user involved primarily in social, charitable, religious, educational or other special purpose activity.
(5) "Residential user" means a user whose premises are used primarily as a domicile for one or more persons and whose wastes originate from normal living activities.
(6) ''Significant industrial user" means:
A. All industrial users subject to categorical pretreatment standards; and
B. 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 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 City Engineer, to adversely affect the POTW's operation or to violate any pretreatment standard or requirement.
(z) "Watercourse" means a channel in which a flow of water occurs, either continuously or intermittently.
(aa) "Categorical pretreatment standards" means any regulation containing pollutant discharge limits promulgated by the EPA, in accordance with Section 307(b) and (c) of the Act (33 U.S.C. 1347), which applies to a specific category of industrial users.
(bb) "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 or operations, or its sludge processing, use or disposal, and, therefore, is a cause of a violation of any requirement of the POTW treatment plant's NPDES permit (including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation) or of the prevention of sludge use or disposal.
(cc) "New source" means any building, structure, facility or installation from which there is or may be a discharge of pollutants, the construction of which commenced after the publication of proposed pretreatment standards under Section 307(c) of the Act, which will be applicable to such source if such standards are thereafter promulgated in accordance with that section, provided that:
(1) The building, structure, facility or installation is constructed at a site at which no other source is located;
(2) The building, structure, facility or installation totally replaces the process or production equipment that causes the discharge of pollutants at an existing source; or
(3) The production or wastewater generating process of the building, structure, facility or installation is substantially independent of an existing source at the same site.
(dd) "Pass through" means a discharge which exits the POTW into waters of the United States, in quantities or concentrations which, alone or in conjunction with a discharge or discharges from other sources, is a cause of a violation of any requirement of the POTW's NPDES permit, including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation.
(ee) "Best Management Practices (BMPs)" means schedules of activities, prohibitions of practices, maintenance procedures and other management practices to implement the prohibitions listed in the Ohio Administrative Code 3745-3-04. “BMPs” also include treatment requirements, operating procedures, and practices to control plant site runoff, spillage or leaks, sludge or waste disposal, or drainage from raw materials storage.
(Ord. 86-08. Passed 5-19-86; Ord. 91-07. Passed 3-18-91; Ord. 92-19. Passed 9-21-92; Ord. 05-09. Passed 3-21-05; Ord. 07-19. Passed 11-19-07; Ord. 09-07. Passed 5-4-09.)