Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in this chapter shall be as follows:
(1) "A.S.T.M." means the American Society for Testing Materials, latest publication.
(2) "Biochemical oxygen demand" (BOD) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure in five days at 20°C, expressed in milligrams per liter.
(3) "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 the building and conveys it to the building sewer, beginning five feet (1.5 meters) outside the inner face of the building wall.
(4) "Building sewer" means the extension from the building drain to the public sewer or other place of disposal, also called house connection.
(5) "Chemical oxygen demand" (COD) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the chemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedures expressed in milligrams per liter.
(6) "City" means the City of Vermilion, Ohio, or its authorized representative.
(7) "Combined sewer" means a sewer intended to receive both wastewater and storm or surface water.
(8) "Compatible pollutant" means BOD, suspended solids, pH, and fecal coliform bacteria, plus additional pollutants identified in the NPDES permit, if the publicly-owned treatment works were designed to treat such pollutants, and in fact does remove such pollutants to a substantial degree. Examples of such additional pollutants may include:
A. COD;
B. Total organic carbon;
C. Phosphorus and phosphorus compounds;
D. Nitrogen and nitrogen compounds;
E. Fats, oils and greases of animal or vegetable origin except as prohibited under Section 1042.05(d).
(9) "Director" means the Director of Public Utilities for the City or his authorized representative.
(10) "Engineer" means the City Engineer or his authorized representative.
(11) "Federal Act" means the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, Public Law 92-500 and any amendments thereto; as well as any guidelines, limitations and standards promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pursuant to the Act.
(12) "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.
(13) "Garbage" means the animal and vegetable waste resulting from the handling, preparation, cooling and serving of food.
(14) "Incompatible pollutant" means any pollutant which is not a compatible pollutant as defined in subsection (8) hereof.
(15) "Industrial wastes" means the wastewater from industrial processes, trade or business as distinct from domestic or sanitary wastes.
(16) "Major contributing industry" means an industrial user of the publicly-owned treatment works that:
A. Has a flow of 50,000 gallons or more per average work day;
B. Has a flow greater than five percent of the flow carried by the Municipal system receiving the waste;
C. Has in its waste, a toxic pollutant in toxic amounts as defined in standards issued under Section 307(a) of the Federal Act; or
D. Is found by the permit issuance authority in connection with the issuance of an NPDES permit to the publicly-owned treatment works receiving the waste, to have significant impact, either singly or in combination with other contributing industries, on that treatment works or upon the quality of effluent from that treatment works.
(17) "May" is permissive; "shall" is mandatory.
(18) "Natural outlet" means any outlet, including storm sewers and combined sewer overflows, into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake or other body of surface or ground water.
(19) "Normal sewage" means the spent water supply of the community resulting from use in residential, industrial and commercial establishments. Concentration of pollutants is similar to domestic sewage which results solely from residential use and shall be determined by the Engineer based on tests performed on the sewage of the community.
(20) "NPDES permit" means the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.
(21) "Person" means any individual, firm, company, association, society, corporation or group.
(22) "pH" means the reciprocal of the logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration. The concentration is the weight of hydrogen ions in grams, per liter of solution. Neutral water, for example, has a pH value of 7 and a hydrogen ion concentration of 10-7.
(23) "Pollutant" means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, wastewater, garbage, wastewater sludge, munition, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt, and industrial, municipal and agricultural waste discharged into water.
(24) "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 flow conditions normally prevailing in public sewers, with no particle greater than one-half inch (1.27 centimeters) in any dimension.
(25) "Pretreatment" means the treatment of wastewaters from sources before introduction into publicly-owned wastewater treatment facilities.
(26) "Public sewer" means a common sewer controlled by a governmental agency or public utility.
(27) "Sanitary sewer" means a sewer that carries liquid and water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions together with minor quantities of ground, storm and surface waters that are not admitted intentionally.
(28) "Slug" means any discharge of water or wastewater which in concentration of any given constituent or in quantity of flow exceeds for any period of duration longer than fifteen minutes more than five times the average twenty-four hour concentration of flows during normal operation which shall adversely affect the collection system and/or performance of the wastewater treatment works.
(29) "Storm drain" or "storm sewer" means a drain or sewer for conveying water, groundwater, subsurface water or unpolluted water from any source.
(30) "Superintendent" means the Manager of the Division of Utilities of the City or his or her authorized deputy, agent or representative.
(31) "Suspended solids" means total suspended matter that either floats on the surface of, or is in suspension in, water, wastewater or other liquids, and that is removable by laboratory filtering as prescribed in Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater and referred to as nonfilterable residue.
(32) "Toxic pollutants" includes but not necessarily is limited to aldrin-dieldrin, benzidine, cadmium, cyanide, DDT-endrin, mercury, polychlorlnated biphenyls (PCB's) and toxaphene. Pollutants included as "toxic" shall be those promulgated as such by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
(33) "Unpolluted water" means water of quality equal to or better than the effluent criteria in effect or water that would not cause violation of receiving water quality standards and would not be benefitted by discharge to the sanitary sewers and wastewater treatment facilities provided.
(34) "Wastewater" means the spent water of a community. From the standpoint of source, it may be a combination of the liquid and water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions, together with any groundwater, surface water and stormwater that may be present.
(35) "Wastewater facilities" means the structures, equipment and processes required to collect, carry away and treat domestic and industrial wastes and dispose of the effluent.
(36) "Wastewater treatment works" means an arrangement of devices and structures for treating wastewater, industrial wastes and sludge and is sometimes used as synonymous with "waste treatment plant" or "wastewater treatment plant" or "water pollution control plant".
(37) "W.P.C.F." means the Water Pollution Control Federation.
(38) "User charge" means the charge assessed users of the system to recover a user's proportionate share of the cost of operation, maintenance and replacement of the sewerage system.
(39) "User class" means the division of users of the sewerage system by waste characteristics, by process water discharge similarities or by the Standard Industrial Classification Manual, Office of Management and Budget, 1972, as amended or supplemented. For purposes of this chapter, the two categories of users shall be identified as industrial user and nonindustrial user.
(40) "Industrial user" means any nongovernmental user of the publicly-owned treatment works identified in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual under the following divisions: Division A - Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing; Division B - Mining Division D - Manufacturing; Division E - Transportation, Communications, Electric, Gas and Sanitary Service; Division I - Services. A user in the division listed may be excluded if it is determined that it will introduce primary segregated domestic waste from sanitary conveniences.
(41) "Nonindustrial user" means any user of the treatment works who cannot properly be classified as an industrial user and shall generally include users usually identified as residential and commercial.
(42) "Operation and maintenance costs" means the costs incurred in the act of keeping all facilities for collecting, pumping, treating and disposing of sewage in a good state of repair and functioning properly (including "replacement.")
(43) "Replacement costs" 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.
(44) "Debt service charge" means the portion of the sewer service charge that is designated for the retirement of interest on bonds and/or notes authorized and issued by the City to construct sewerage system facilities within the City.
(45) "Sewer service charge" means the total charge assessed users of the sewerage system. The sewer service charge includes user charges, plus the cost of debt service, the cost of capital improvement, the cost of wastewater monitoring and any other cost that is incurred by the City in the operation of the sewerage system.
(Ord. 81-47. Passed 8-17-81.)