13.16.010 Definitions.
In addition to the definitions set forth in WVMC 1.04.010, as used in this chapter, sanitary sewer, sewer, and wastewater have the same meaning. Unless the context requires otherwise, for purposes of this chapter the following mean:
“Act” means the Clean Water Act (33 USC 1251 et seq.), as amended.
“Actual cost” means labor, materials, equipment, construction services, and administrative overhead.
“Applicable pretreatment standards” means any federal, state or City discharge prohibition or standard, whichever is most stringent.
“Best management practices (BMPs)” means schedules of activities, prohibitions of practices, maintenance procedures, and other management practices to implement the limitations listed in the WVMC 13.16.020. 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.
“Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)” means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedures in five days at twenty (20) degrees Centigrade, expressed in milligrams per liter. The laboratory determinations shall be made in accordance with procedures set forth in “standard methods.”
“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 a building and conveys it to the building sewer beginning five feet outside the building wall.
“Building service lateral” means a public sanitary sewer beginning at the property line or public easement line, and extending to the sanitary sewer main.
“Building sewer” means a private sanitary sewer beginning five feet outside the building and extending to the property line or public easement line, connecting to the building service lateral.
“Capital improvements” means facilities or assets used for wastewater collection, transmission, treatment, and disposal.
“Categorical pretreatment standard” or “categorical standard” means any regulation containing pollutant discharge limits promulgated by the USEPA in accordance with Section 307(b) and (c) of the Act (33 U.S.C. 1317) which applies to a specific category of industrial users and which appears in 40 CFR Chapter I, Subchapter N, Parts 405-471, incorporated herein by reference.
“Collector sewer” means the portion of the public sewerage system that is primarily installed to receive wastewater directly from individual residences and other individual public or private structures.
“Combined sewer” means a sewer that is designed as both a sanitary and a stormwater sewer.
“Customer/user” means the owner, renter or lessee of property served by the sanitary sewerage system.
“Daily maximum limit” means the maximum allowable discharge limit of a pollutant during a calendar day. Where daily maximum limits are expressed in units of mass, the daily discharge is the total mass discharged over the course of the day. Where daily maximum limits are expressed in terms of a concentration, the daily discharge is the arithmetic average measurement of the pollutant concentration derived from all measurements taken that day.
“Development” means any human-made change to improved or unimproved real property, including but not limited to construction, installation, or alteration of a building or other structure; condominium conversion; land division; establishment or termination of a right of access; storage on real property; tree cutting; drilling; and site alteration such as that due to land surface mining, dredging, grading, paving, excavation, or clearing.
“Garbage” means solid wastes from the domestic and commercial preparation, cooking and dispensing of food, and from the handling, storage and sale of produce.
“Improvement fee” means a fee for costs associated with capital improvements to be constructed after the date the fee is adopted.
“Industrial user” means any user of the sanitary sewerage system who is the source of a nondomestic discharge.
“Industrial wastes” means solid, liquid or gaseous waste resulting from any industrial, manufacturing, trade or business process or from the development, recovery or processing of natural resources.
“Infiltration” means the intrusion of groundwater into the sanitary sewerage system through defective pipes, pipe joints, connections or maintenance access in the sanitary sewerage system or building sewers.
“Inflow” means a direct flow of water other than wastewater that enters the sanitary sewerage system or building sewers from such sources as, but not limited to, roof leaders; cellar, yard, area, and foundation drains; uncontaminated or noncontact cooling water discharges; drains from springs and swampy areas; maintenance access covers; cross-connections from storm drains; catch basins; stormwaters; surface runoff; and street wash waters.
“Interceptor (trunk) sewer” means a sanitary sewer primarily intended to receive wastewater from a collector sewer, another interceptor sewer, an existing major discharge of raw or inadequately treated wastewater, or a water pollution control facility.
“Interference” means discharge that, alone or in conjunction with discharges by other sources, inhibits or disrupts the wastewater treatment plant; its treatment processes or operations; or its sludge processes, use or disposal; and
1. Causes a violation of any requirement of the NPDES permit including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation; or
2. Causes sludge or sludge disposal to violate any of the following requirements:
a. State or local regulations,
b. Permits, or
c. The following statutory provisions and regulations or permits issued thereunder:
i. Section 405 of the Clean Water Act,
ii. The Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA) including Title II, more commonly referred to as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), or
iii. State regulations contained in any state sludge management plan prepared pursuant to subtitle D of the SWDA, the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substance Control Act and the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act.
“Land area” means the area of a parcel of land as measured by projection of the parcel boundaries upon a horizontal plane with the exception of a portion of the parcel within a recorded right-of-way or easement subject to a servitude for a public street or scenic or preservation purpose.
“Milligram per liter (mg/L)” means a weight-to-volume ratio. The milligram per liter value multiplied by the factor 8.345 shall be equivalent to pounds per million gallons of water. “Milligram per liter” shall be considered as equivalent to parts per million (ppm).
“Multi-family” means any building, group of buildings, housing complex or manufactured home park that contains four or more dwelling units.
“National pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES)” means permit program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“National pretreatment standard” means any regulation containing pollutant discharge limits promulgated by EPA under Sections 307(b) and (c) of the Act applicable to industrial users, including the general and specific prohibitions found in 40 CFR 403.5.
“Natural waters” means any watercourse, stream, creek, pond, ditch, lake, or other body of surface water or groundwater that supports wildlife or serves as a source of drinking water for humans or animals, or any water that may be hydrologically connected to such waters.
New Source.
1. 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. The pretreatment standards will be applicable to such source if such standards are thereafter promulgated in accordance with that section; provided, that:
a. The building, structure, facility or installation is constructed at a site at which no other source is located; or
b. The building, structure, facility or installation completely replaces the process or production equipment that causes the discharge of pollutants at an existing source; or
c. The production or wastewater generating processes of the building, structure, facility or installation are substantially independent of an existing source at the same site. In determining whether these are substantially independent, factors such as the extent to which the new facility is integrated with the existing plant, and the extent to which the new facility is engaged in the same general type of activity as the existing source should be considered.
2. Construction on a site at which an existing source is located results in a modification rather than a new source if the construction does not create a new building, structure, facility or installation meeting the criteria of subsections (1)(b) and (1)(c) of this definition but otherwise alters, replaces or adds to existing process or production equipment.
3. Construction of a new source as defined under this subsection has commenced if the owner or operator has:
a. Begun, or caused to begin as part of a continuous on-site construction program:
i. Any placement. assembly or installation of facilities or equipment, or
ii. Significant site preparation work including clearing, excavation or removal of existing buildings, structures or facilities which is necessary for the placement, assembly, installation of new source facilities or equipment, or
b. Entered into a binding contractual obligation for the purchase of facilities or equipment which are intended to be used in its operation within a reasonable time. Options to purchase or contracts which can be terminated or modified without substantial loss, and contracts for feasibility, engineering, and design studies do not constitute a contractual obligation under this subsection.
“Nondomestic discharge” means the discharge or the introduction of pollutants into the sanitary sewerage system from any nondomestic source regulated under Section 307(b), (c), or (d) of the Act.
“Non-significant industrial user” means any user which provides a service or one connected with commerce which is not classified as a significant industrial user.
“O&M (operation and maintenance)” means activities required to ensure the dependable and economical functioning of the sanitary sewerage system.
1. “Maintenance” means preservation of the functional integrity and efficiency of the sanitary sewerage system. This includes preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, and the replacement of any portion of the sanitary sewerage system.
2. “Operation” means the control of the unit processes and equipment that make up the sanitary sewerage system. This includes keeping financial and personal management records, laboratory control, process control, safety and emergency operation planning, employment of attorneys and consultants, payment of court costs, and payment of any costs or fees reasonably associated with any of the above.
“Oils and grease” means any oil and/or greases of mineral or petroleum origin.
“Other wastes” means decayed wood, sawdust, shavings, bark, lime, refuse, ashes, garbage, offal, oil, tar, chemicals and other substances except sewage and industrial wastes.
“Parcel of land” means a lot, parcel, block, or other tract of land that is occupied or may be occupied by a structure or structures or other use, and that includes the yards and other open spaces required under the zoning, subdivision, or other development ordinance.
“Pass through” means discharge that exits the Gresham wastewater treatment plant into the waters of the United States in quantities or concentrations that, alone or in conjunction with a discharge or discharges from other sources, is a cause of a violation of any requirement of Gresham’s NPDES permit (including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation).
“pH” means the logarithm (base 10) of the reciprocal of the weight of hydrogen ions in grams per liter of solution.
“Pollutant” means any substance discharged into the sanitary sewerage system, except water, including any items identified in a resolution adopted by Council.
“Pretreatment” means the reduction of the amount of pollutants, the elimination of pollutants, or the alteration of the nature of pollutants properties in wastewater to a less harmful state prior to or instead of discharging or otherwise introducing such pollutants into the sanitary sewerage system.
“Pretreatment requirement” means any substantive or procedural requirements related to pretreatment, other than categorical standards and prohibitive discharge standards, imposed on an industrial user.
“Private wastewater disposal system” means a privy, privy vault, septic tank, cesspool, or other facility intended or used for the disposal of wastewater.
“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 the sanitary sewer, with no particle being greater than one-half inch in any dimension.
“Public sanitary sewer” means any sanitary sewer owned, operated and maintained by the public.
“Publicly owned treatment works (POTW)” means treatment works as defined by Section 212 of the Clean Water Act, hereafter (the Act), which is owned by a state or municipality (as defined by section 502(4) of the Act). This definition includes any devices and systems used in the storage, treatment, recycling and reclamation of municipal sewage or industrial wastes of a liquid nature. It also includes sewers, pipes, and other conveyances only if they convey wastewater to a POTW treatment plant. The term also means the municipality as defined in section 502(4) of the Act, which has jurisdiction over the indirect discharges to and the discharges from such a treatment works. The POTW is inclusive of the public sanitary sewer, sanitary sewer main, sanitary sewerage system, and wastewater treatment plant.
“Qualified public improvements” means a capital improvement that is required as a condition of development approval, identified in the plan adopted pursuant to WVMC 13.16.250, and either:
1. Not located on or contiguous to property that is the subject of development approval; or
2. Located in whole or in part on or contiguous to property that is subject of development approval and required to be built larger or with greater capacity than is necessary for the particular development project to which the improvement fee is related.
“Reimbursement fee” means a fee for costs associated with capital improvements constructed or under construction on the date the fee is adopted for which capacity exists.
“Renewal” means any application to validate an expired or voided permit.
“Replacement” means obtaining and installing equipment accessories or appurtenances that are necessary during the design or useful life, whichever is longer, of the sanitary sewerage system to maintain the capacity and performance for which the system is designed and constructed.
“Sanitary sewer” means a pipe or conduit for carrying sewage and industrial wastes.
“Sanitary sewer connection” means a connection of the building service lateral to the sewer main or a connection of the building sewer to the building service lateral.
“Sanitary sewer connection charges” means all charges required for the right to connect to the sanitary sewerage system including sanitary sewer inspection fees, system development charges, and public wastewater facility charges.
“Sanitary sewer main” means a public sanitary sewer that collects all of the building service laterals and transmits wastewater.
“Sanitary sewerage system” means all publicly owned facilities for collecting, pumping, treating, and disposing of wastewater.
“Sewage” means water-carried wastes from residences, business buildings, institutions, and industrial establishments, except industrial wastes.
“Significant industrial user” means any industrial user of the sanitary sewerage system who:
Is subject to categorical pretreatment standards under 40 CFR 403.6 and 40 CFR Chapter I, Subchapter N, except as provided in subsection (1)(a) of this definition.
1. The City Manager may determine that an industrial user subject to categorical pretreatment standards under 40 CFR 403.6 and CFR Chapter 1, Subchapter N, is a non-significant categorical industrial user rather than a significant industrial user on a finding that the industrial user never discharges more than one hundred (100) gallons per day (gpd) of total categorical wastewater (excluding sanitary, non-contact cooling and boiler blowdown wastewater, unless specifically included in the pretreatment standard) and the following conditions are met:
a. The industrial user, prior to the City’s finding, has consistently complied with all applicable categorical pretreatment standards and requirements;
b. The industrial user annually submits the certification statement required in 40 CFR 403.12(a) together with any additional information necessary to support the certification statement; and
c. The industrial user never discharges any untreated concentrated wastewater;
d. Has a non-domestic flow of twenty-five thousand (25,000) gallons or more per average workday;
e. Contributes more than five percent of the average dry weather hydraulic, organic, or solids handling load to the sanitary sewerage system; or
f. Is determined by the City Manager to have a reasonable potential for adversely affecting the wastewater treatment facility’s operation by either upset, inhibition, pass through of pollutants, sludge contamination, or other means, or for violating a pretreatment standard or requirement;
g. Upon finding that an industrial user meeting the criteria in subsections (1)(b) through (1)(d) of this definition has no reasonable potential for adversely affecting the wastewater treatment plant’s operation or for violating any pretreatment standards or requirement, the Manager may at any time, on their own initiative or in response to a petition received from an industrial user or wastewater treatment plant, and in accordance with 40 CFR 403.8(f)(6), determine that such industrial user is not a significant industrial user.
Significant Noncompliance (SNC).
1. A significant industrial user, (or any industrial user which violates subsections (1)(c), (1)(d), or (1)(h) of this definition), is in significant noncompliance if its violation meets one or more of the following criteria:
a. Chronic violations of wastewater discharge limits, defined here as those in which sixty-six (66) percent or more of all of the measurements taken for the same pollutant parameter during a six-month period exceed (by any magnitude) numeric pretreatment standard or requirement, including instantaneous limits, as defined by 40 CFR 403.3(1);
b. Technical review criteria (TRC) violations, defined here as those in which 33 percent or more of all of the measurements taken for the same pollutant parameter during a six-month period equal or exceed the product of the numeric pretreatment standard or requirement, including instantaneous limits, as defined by 40 CFR 403.3(1) multiplied by the applicable TRC (TRC = 1.4 for BOD, TSS, fats, oil and grease, and 1.2 for all other pollutants except pH);
c. Any other violation of a pretreatment standard or requirement, as defined by 40 CFR 403.3(1) (daily maximum, long-term average, instantaneous limit, or narrative standard) that the City Manager believes has caused, alone or in combination with other discharges, interference or pass through (including endangering the health of sanitary sewerage system personnel or the general public);
d. Any discharge of a pollutant that has caused imminent endangerment to human health, welfare or to the environment or has resulted in the City Manager’s exercise of their emergency authority to halt or prevent such a discharge;
e. Failure to meet, within ninety (90) days after the schedule date, a compliance schedule milestone contained in a local control mechanism or enforcement order for starting construction, completing construction, or attaining final compliance;
f. Failure to provide, within forty-five (45) days after the due date, required reports such as baseline monitoring reports, ninety (90) day compliance reports, periodic self-monitoring reports, and reports on compliance with compliance schedules;
g. Failure to accurately report noncompliance; or
h. Any other violation or group of violations, including a violation of best management practices, that the City Manager determines will adversely affect the operation or implementation of its pretreatment program.
“Slug discharge” means any discharge to the sanitary sewerage system of a non-routine, episodic nature, including but not limited to an accidental spill or a non-customary batch discharge which has a reasonable potential to cause interference or pass through, or in any other way violate the City’s regulations, local limitations, or permit conditions.
“Standard methods” means the examination and analytical procedures set forth in the most recent edition of “Standard Methods for the Examination of Water, Sewage and Industrial Wastes,” published jointly by the American Public Health Association, the American Water Works Association, and the Federation of Sewage and Industrial Wastes Association.
“Storm drain” means a pipe or conduit which carries storm and surface waters, but excludes sewage and industrial wastes, other than unpolluted water.
“Surcharge” means the charge in addition to the user charge which is charged to those customers whose wastes are greater in strength than the concentration values established by the City.
“Suspended solids” means solids that either float on the surface of or are suspended in wastewater which are removable by laboratory filtering. Quantitative determination of suspended solids is made in accordance with procedures set forth in “standard methods.”
“System development charge” means a reimbursement fee, an improvement fee or a combination of fees assessed or collected at the time of increased usage of a capital improvement, at the time of issuance of a development permit or building permit, or at the time of connection to the capital improvement. “System development charge” includes that portion of a sewer system connection charge that is greater than the amount necessary to reimburse the City for its average cost of inspecting and installing connections with water and sewer facilities. “System development charge” does not include fees assessed or collected as part of a local improvement district or a charge in lieu of a local improvement district assessment, or the cost of complying with requirements or conditions imposed by a land use decision.
“Toxic pollutants” means those pollutants, or combination of pollutants, including disease-causing agents, that after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion, inhalation or assimilation into any organism, either directly from the environment or indirectly by ingestion through food chains, will, on the basis of information available to the City Manager, cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological malfunctions (including malfunctions in reproduction), or physical deformations, in such organisms or their offspring. “Toxic pollutants” include those substances listed in the federal priority pollutant list and any other pollutant or combination of pollutants listed as toxic in regulations promulgated by the manager of the Environmental Protection Agency pursuant to Section 307 of the Act (33 USC 1317).
“Unpolluted water or liquids” means any water or liquid containing none of the following: free or emulsified grease or oil; acids or alkalis; substances that may impart taste, odor or color characteristics; toxic or poisonous substances in suspension, colloidal state, or solution; odorous or otherwise obnoxious gases. It shall contain no more than one (1.0) milligram per liter each of suspended solids or biochemical oxygen demand. Analytical determinations shall be made in accordance with procedures set forth in “standard methods.”
“Upset” means an exceptional incident in which a discharge unintentionally and temporarily is in a state of noncompliance with categorical pretreatment standards due to the factors beyond the reasonable control of the industrial user, and excluding noncompliance to the extent caused by operational error, improperly designed treatment facilities, inadequate treatment facilities, lack of preventative maintenance, or careless or improper operation.
“User charge” means a charge paid by a customer of the sanitary sewerage system for the customer’s proportionate share of the cost of operation and maintenance, including replacement, of the system.
“Wastewater” means 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.
“Wastewater treatment plant” means the arrangement of devices and structures used for treating wastewater.
“Watercourse” means a channel in which a flow of water occurs, either continuously or intermittently. (Ord. 2-2023 § 1 (Att. A), 2023; Ord. 3-2009, 2009; Ord. 4-2003, 2003.)