For purpose of this regulation, the following terms shall have the meaning herein indicated:
(a) BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES (BMPs): Schedule of activities, prohibitions of practices, general good housekeeping practices, pollution prevention and educational practices, maintenance procedures, and other management practices to prevent or reduce the pollution of water resources and wetlands. BMPs may include structural practices, conservation practices and operation and maintenance procedures.
(b) CITY: Throughout this regulation, this shall refer to employees or designees of the Mayor of the City of Warrensville Heights.
(c) CHANNEL: A natural stream that conveys water, or a ditch or channel excavated for the natural flow of water.
(d) DAMAGED OR DISEASED TREES: Trees that have split trunks; broken tops; heart rot; insect or fungus problems that will lead to imminent death; undercut root systems that put the tree in imminent danger of falling; leaning as a result of root failure that puts the tree in imminent danger of falling, or any other condition that puts the tree in imminent danger of being uprooted or falling.
(e) DESIGNATED WATERCOURSE: A watercourse that is contained within, flows through, or borders the City and meets the criteria set forth in these regulations.
(f) DEVELOPMENT AREA: A parcel or contiguous parcels owned by one person or persons, or operated as one development unit, and used or being developed for commercial, industrial, residential, institutional, or other construction or alteration that changes runoff characteristics.
(g) DITCH: An excavation, either dug or natural, for the purpose of drainage or irrigation, and having intermittent flow.
(h) DUMPING: The grading, pushing, piling, throwing, unloading or placing of soil or other material.
(i) EROSION: The process by which the land surface is worn away by the action of wind, water, ice, gravity, or any combination of those forces.
(j) FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA): The agency with overall responsibility for administering the National Flood Insurance Program.
(k) IMPERVIOUS COVER: Any surface that cannot effectively absorb or infiltrate water. This includes roads, streets, parking lots, rooftops, and sidewalks.
(l) INTERMITTENT STREAM: A natural channel that may have some water in pools but where surface flows are non-existent or interstitial (flowing through sand and gravel in stream beds) for periods of one week or more during typical summer months.
(m) LARGER COMMON PLAN OF DEVELOPMENT OR SALE: A contiguous area where multiple separate and distinct construction activities may be taking place at different times on different schedules under one plan.
(n) CUYAHOGA COUNTY SWCD: The local county Soil and Water Conservation District.
(o) MAXIMUM EXTENT PRACTICABLE: The level of pollutant reduction that site owners of small municipal separate storm sewer systems regulated under 40 C.F.R. Parts 9, 122, 123, and 124, referred to as NPDES Stormwater Phase II, must meet.
(p) NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE (NRCS): An agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS).
(q) NPDES PERMIT: A National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit issued by Ohio EPA under the authority of the USEPA, and derived from the Federal Clean Water Act.
(r) NOXIOUS WEED: Any plant species defined by City of Warrensville Heights Noxious Weeds and Weeds, Grass and Plant Control Ordinance, Section 945.02 or by the Ohio Department of Agriculture as a “noxious weed”.
(s) OHIO EPA: The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
(t) ORDINARY HIGH WATER MARK: The point of the bank or shore to which the presence and action of surface water is so continuous as to leave a district marked by erosion, destruction or prevention of woody terrestrial vegetation, predominance of aquatic vegetation, or other easily recognized characteristic.
(u) OUTFALL: An area where water flows from a structure such as a conduit, storm sewer, improved channel or drain, and the area immediately beyond the structure which is impacted by the velocity of flow in the structure.
(v) PERSON: Any individual, corporation, firm, trust, commission, board, public or private partnership, joint venture, agency, unincorporated association, municipal corporation, county or state agency, the federal government, other legal entity, or an agent thereof.
(w) PERENNIAL STREAM: A natural channel that contains water throughout the year, except possibly during periods of extreme drought.
(x) REDEVELOPMENT: The demolition or removal of existing structures or land uses and construction of new ones.
(y) RIPARIAN AREA: Land adjacent to watercourses that if naturally vegetated and/or appropriately revegetated and appropriately sized, limits erosion, reduces flood flows, and/or filters and settles out runoff pollutants, or which performs other functions consistent with the purposes of these regulations.
(z) RIPARIAN SETBACK: Those lands within the City which are alongside streams, and which fall within the area defined by the criteria set forth in these regulations.
(aa) SEDIMENT: The soils or other surface materials that are transported or deposited by the action of wind, water, ice, gravity, or any combination of those forces, as a product of erosion.
(bb) SEDIMENT CONTROL: The limiting of sediment being transported, by controlling erosion or detaining sediment-laden water, and allowing the sediment to settle out.
(cc) SEDIMENT POLLUTION: A failure to use management or conservation practices to control wind or water erosion of the soil and to minimize the degradation of water resources by soil sediment in conjunction with land grading, excavating, filling, or other soil disturbing activities on land used or being developed for commercial, industrial, residential, or other purposes.
(dd) SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE, USDA: The federal agency now titled the “Natural Resources Conservation Service,” which is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture.
(ee) SOIL DISTURBING ACTIVITY: Clearing, grading, excavating, filling, or other alteration of the earth’s surface where natural or human made ground cover is destroyed and that may result in, or contribute to, erosion and sediment pollution.
(ff) STORMWATER POLLUTION PREVENTION PLAN (SWP3): The written document that sets forth the plans and practices to be used to meet the requirements of this regulation.
(gg) STREAM: 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.
(hh) USEPA: The United States Environmental Protection Agency.
(ii) 100-YEAR FLOODPLAIN: Any land susceptible to being inundated by water from a base flood. The base flood is the flood that has a one percent (1%) or greater chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. For the purposes of this regulation, the 100-year floodplain shall be defined by FEMA or a site-specific Floodplain Delineation in conformance with standard engineering practices and approved by the City.
(jj) WATERCOURSE: This shall mean any natural, perennial, or intermittent lake, pond, channel, stream, river, creek or brook with a defined bed and bank or shore.
(kk) WATER RESOURCES: All streams, lakes, ponds, wetlands, watercourses, waterways, drainage systems, and all other bodies or accumulations of surface water, either natural or artificial, which are situated wholly or partly within, or border upon this State, or are within its jurisdiction, except those private waters which do not combine or affect a junction with natural surface waters.
(ll) WETLAND: Those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances, do support a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions, including swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas (40 CFR 232, as amended).
(mm) WETLAND, OHIO EPA CATEGORY 2 WETLANDS: Those wetlands classified by the Ohio EPA as Category 2 wetlands under OAC 3745-1-54 (C) (2), or current equivalent Ohio EPA classification, in accordance with generally accepted wetland functional assessment methods acceptable to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Ohio EPA at the time of application of this regulation.
(nn) WETLAND, OHIO EPA CATEGORY 3 WETLANDS: Those wetlands classified by the Ohio EPA as Category 3 wetlands under OAC 3745-1-54(C)(3), or current equivalent Ohio EPA classification, in accordance with generally accepted wetland functional assessment methods acceptable to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Ohio EPA at the time of application of this regulation.
(oo) WETLAND SETBACK: Those lands within the City that fall within the area defined by the criteria set forth in these regulations.
(Ord. 2007-140. Passed 9-18-07.)