Oklahoma Administrative Code › Title 252 - Department of Environmental Quality › Chapter 730 - Oklahoma's Water Quality Standards › Subchapter 1 - General Provisions › Section 252:730-1-2 - Definitions

Current through Vol. 41, No. 20, July 1, 2024
The following words and terms, when used in this Chapter,
				  shall have the following meaning unless the context clearly indicates
				  otherwise:
"7Q2"
means the seven-day, two-year low
				  flow.
"Abatement"
means reduction of the degree or
				  intensity of pollution.
"Acute test failure"
means greater than or equal
				  to 50% mortality to appropriate test species at or below the critical effluent
				  dilution after a 48 hour test as provided in OAC
				  252:690-3-29.
"Acute toxicity"
means greater than or equal to
				  50% lethality to appropriate test organisms in a test sample.
"Alpha particle"
means a positively charged
				  particle emitted by certain radioactive materials. It is the least penetrating
				  of the three common types of radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) and usually is
				  not dangerous to plants, animals or humans.
"Ambient"
means surrounding, especially of or
				  pertaining to the environment about an entity, but undisturbed and unaffected
				  by it.
"Aquifer"
means a formation that contains
				  sufficient saturated, permeable material to yield significant quantities of
				  water to wells and springs. This implies an ability to store and transmit
				  water; unconsolidated sands and gravels are typical examples.
"Aquifer Storage and Recovery Activities"
or
("ASR")
means activities that exclusively include activities for
				  the storage of water in and recovery of water from an aquifer pursuant to a
				  site-specific aquifer storage and recovery plan authorized by 82 O.S. §
				  1020.2A. Activities not conducted pursuant to a site-specific aquifer storage
				  and recovery plan shall not be considered ASR activities. For purposes of this
				  chapter, ASR activities also shall not include groundwater recharge or
				  augmentation through a natural connection with a farm pond or other impoundment
				  otherwise authorized by law.
"Artificial Aquifer Recharge"
means activities
				  with the primary purpose of recharging or augmenting an aquifer with no
				  intention of recovering such water for future use. For purposes of this
				  chapter, Artificial Aquifer Recharge activities shall not include activities
				  specifically authorized pursuant to 82 O.S. § 1020.2(G) or stormwater
				  runoff management practices otherwise authorized by law.
"Assimilative capacity"
means the amount of
				  pollution a waterbody can receive and still maintain the water quality
				  standards designated for that waterbody.
"Attainable uses"
means the best uses achievable
				  for a particular waterbody given water of adequate quality. The process of use
				  attainability analysis can, and in certain cases must, be used to determine
				  attainable uses for a waterbody.
"Background"
means the ambient condition
				  upstream or upgradient from a facility, practice or activity which has not been
				  affected by that facility, practice or activity.
"BCF"
means bioconcentration factor.
"Beneficial uses"
means a classification of the
				  waters of the State, according to their best uses in the interest of the
				  public.
"Benthic macroinvertebrates"
means invertebrate
				  animals that are large enough to be seen by the unaided eye, can be retained by
				  a U. S. Standard No. 30 sieve, and live at least part of their life cycles
				  within or upon available substrate in a body of water or water transport
				  system.
"Best available technology"
means the best
				  proven technology, treatment techniques or other economically viable means
				  which are commercially available.
"Best management practices"
means schedules of
				  activities, prohibitions of practices, maintenance procedures, and other
				  management practices to prevent or reduce the pollution of waters of the state
				  or United States. 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 material storage.
"Beta particle"
means a negatively charged
				  elementary particle emitted by radioactive decay that may cause skin burns. It
				  is easily stopped by a thin sheet of metal.
"Bioconcentration factor"
means the relative
				  measure of the ability of a contaminant to be stored in tissues and thus to
				  accumulate through the food chain and is shown as the following formula: BCF =
				  Tissue Concentration divided by Water Concentration.
"BMPs"
means best management practices.
"Board"
means the Environmental Quality
				  Board
"BOD"
means biochemical oxygen demand.
"Carcinogenic"
means cancer producing.
"Chronic test failure"
means the statistically
				  significant difference (at the 95% confidence level) between survival,
				  reproduction or growth of the test organism at or below the chronic critical
				  dilution after completion of a 7 day test as provided in OAC
				  252:690-3-29, or other test as
				  approved by the permitting authority and the EPA Regional Administrator, and a
				  control.
"Chronic toxicity"
means a statistically
				  significant difference (at the 95% confidence level) between longer-term
				  survival and/or reproduction or growth of the appropriate test organisms in a
				  test sample and a control. Teratogenicity and mutagenicity are considered to be
				  effects of chronic toxicity.
"Coliform group organisms"
means all of the
				  aerobic and facultative anaerobic gram-negative, non-spore-forming rod shaped
				  bacteria that ferment lactose broth with gas formation within 48 hours at
				  35°C.
"Color"
means true color as well as apparent
				  color. True color is the color of the water from which turbidity has been
				  removed. Apparent color includes not only the color due to substances in
				  solution (true color), but also that color due to suspended matter.
"Conservative element"
means a substance which
				  persists in the environment, having characteristics which are resistant to
				  ordinary biological or chemical degradation or volatilization.
"Conservation plan"
means, but is not limited
				  to, a written plan which lists activities, management practices and maintenance
				  or operating procedures designed to promote natural resource conservation and
				  is intended for the prevention and reduction of pollution of waters of the
				  state.
"Critical dilution"
means, for chronic whole
				  effluent toxicity testing, an effluent dilution expressed as a percentage
				  representative of the dilution afforded a wastewater discharge according to the
				  appropriate Q*-dependent chronic mixing zone equation.
"Critical temperature"
means the higher of the
				  seven-day maximum temperature likely to occur with a 50% probability each year,
				  or 29.4°C (85°F).
"Criterion"
means a number or narrative
				  statement assigned to protect a designated beneficial use.
"CWAC"
means Cool Water Aquatic
				  Community.
"Degradation"
means any condition caused by the
				  activities of humans which result in the prolonged impairment of any
				  constituent of the aquatic environment.
"DEQ"
means the Oklahoma Department of
				  Environmental Quality.
"Designated beneficial uses"
means those uses
				  specified for each waterbody or segment whether or not they are being
				  attained.
"Dissolved oxygen"
means the amount of oxygen
				  dissolved in water at any given time, depending upon the water temperature, the
				  partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere in contact with the water, the
				  concentration of dissolved organic substances in the water, and the physical
				  aeration of the water.
"DO"
means dissolved oxygen.
"DRASTIC"
means that standardized system
				  developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for evaluating
				  groundwater vulnerability to pollution, based upon consideration of depth to
				  water (D), net recharge (R), aquifer media (A), soil media (S), topography (T),
				  impact of the vadose zone media (I), and hydraulic conductivity (C) of the
				  aquifer.
"EPA"
means the United States Environmental
				  Protection Agency.
"Ephemeral stream"
means an entire stream which
				  flows only during or immediately after a rainfall event, and contains no refuge
				  pools capable of sustaining a viable community of aquatic organisms.
"Epilimnion"
means the uppermost homothermal
				  region of a stratified lake.
"Eutrophication"
means the process whereby the
				  condition of a waterbody changes from one of low biologic productivity and
				  clear water to one of high productivity and water made turbid by the
				  accelerated growth of algae.
"Existing beneficial uses"
means those uses
				  listed in Title 40 C.F.R.
				  §
										131.3 actually attained by a waterbody
				  on or after November 28, 1975. These uses may include public water supplies,
				  fish and wildlife propagation, recreational uses, agriculture, industrial water
				  supplies, navigation, and aesthetics.
"Existing point source discharge(s)"
means, for
				  purposes of OAC
				  252:730-5-25, point source
				  discharges other than stormwater which were/are in existence when the ORW, HQW,
				  or SWS, or SWS-R designation was/is assigned to the water(s) which receive(s)
				  the discharge. The load from a point source discharge which is subject to the
				  no increase limitation shall be based on the permitted mass loadings and
				  concentrations, as appropriate, in the discharge permit effective when the
				  limitation was assigned. Publicly owned treatment works may use design flow,
				  mass loadings or concentration as appropriate if those flows, loadings or
				  concentrations were approved as a portion of Oklahoma's Water Quality
				  Management Plan prior to the application of the ORW, HQW, SWS or SWS-R
				  limitation.
"Fecal coliform"
means a group of organisms
				  common to the intestinal tracts of humans and of animals. The presence of fecal
				  coliform bacteria in water is an indicator of pollution and of potentially
				  dangerous bacterial contamination.
"Fresh groundwater"
means groundwater with
				  naturally-occurring concentrations of total dissolved solids less than 10,000
				  mg/L, or with levels of total dissolved solids of 10,000 or more mg/L caused by
				  human activities.
"Geometric mean"
means the nth root of the
				  product of the samples.
"Groundwater"
means
waters of the state
				  under the surface of the earth regardless of the geologic structure in which it
				  is standing or moving outside the cut bank of any definite stream.
[82
				  O.S. § 1020.1(1)].
"Groundwater basin"
means a distinct underground
				  body of water overlain by contiguous land and having substantially the same
				  geological and hydrological characteristics and yield capabilities".
"HLAC"
means Habitat Limited Aquatic
				  Community.
"HQW"
means High Quality Water.
"HUC"
means hydrologic unit code utilized by the
				  United States Geologic Survey and other federal and state agencies as a way of
				  identifying all drainage basins in the United States in a nested arrangement
				  from largest to smallest, consisting of a multi-digit code which identifies
				  each of the levels of classification within two-digit fields.
"Intolerant climax fish community"
means habitat
				  and water quality adequate to support game fishes or other sensitive species
				  introduced or native to the biotic province or ecological region, which require
				  specific or narrow ranges of high quality environmental conditions.
"Lake"
means:
(A) An impoundment of waters of the state
				over 50 acre-feet in volume which is either:
(i) owned or operated by federal, state,
				county, or local government or
(ii)
				appears in Oklahoma's Clean Lakes Inventory.