Oklahoma Administrative Code › Title 252 - Department of Environmental Quality › Chapter 690 - Water Quality Standards Implementation › Subchapter 1 - Introduction › Section 252:690-1-2 - Definitions

Current through Vol. 41, No. 20, July 1, 2024
The following words or terms, when used in this Chapter,
				  shall have the following meaning, unless the context clearly indicates
				  otherwise:
"40 C.F.R."
means Title 40 of the Code of
				  Federal Regulations.
"Acute WET testing"
means WET testing which
				  measures short-term lethality to a specific aquatic animal test species as
				  specified in OAC
				  252:690-3-29.
"AO"
means an Administrative Order.
"ARAR"
means appropriate, relevant and
				  applicable requirements, when used in the context of Superfund and
				  Brownfields-related investigations and remediations.
"Arithmetic mean"
means the sum of the values of
				  individual data points in a data set divided by the number of data points. This
				  term is synonymous with arithmetic average.
"Background concentration"
means the
				  concentration of a substance in receiving water immediately upstream of, but
				  not influenced by, a wastewater discharge.
"BMP"
means Best Management Practice(s), a
				  technique determined to be the most effective, practical means of preventing or
				  reducing pollutant discharges to achieve water quality goals. The term is
				  generally applied in the context of nonpoint sources.
"BUMP"
means Beneficial Use Monitoring Program,
				  a program developed by the OWRB pursuant to 27A O.S. §
									1-3-101, for monitoring the
				  state's surface and groundwater quality for the purpose of determining
				  compliance with the WQS and the effectiveness of water quality management
				  activities.
"CAA"
means the Clean Air Act and amendments
				  thereto.
"CAFO"
means Concentrated Animal Feeding
				  Operation.
"CEI"
means Compliance Evaluation
				  Inspection.
"CERCLA"
means the Comprehensive Environmental
				  Response, Compensation and Liability Act, also known as Superfund (see also
				  SARA).
"C.F.R."
means Code of Federal
				  Regulations.
"Chronic WET testing"
means WET testing which
				  measures long term lethal and sublethal effects to a specific aquatic animal
				  test species as specified in OAC
				  252:690-3-29.
"CO"
means Consent Order.
"Coefficient of variation (CV)"
means, when used
				  in the context of effluent data, the measure of an effluent distribution's
				  variation relative to its mean. When used in the context of WET test
				  acceptability, CV means the % variation among test replicates in either the
				  control or the critical dilution.
"Conservative substance"
means a substance which
				  persists in the environment, having characteristics which are resistant to
				  ordinary biological or biochemical degradation.
"Conventional Pollutants"
means the following
				  five pollutants: five-day biochemical oxygen demand
				  (BOD5) or, alternatively, five-day carbonaceous
				  biochemical oxygen demand, (CBOD5), suspended solids,
				  oil and grease, fecal coliform and pH.
"Corporation Commission"
means the Oklahoma
				  Corporation Commission.
"CPP"
means the Continuing Planning Process
				  document, which describes present and planned water quality management programs
				  and the strategy used by the State in conducting these programs. Procedures for
				  developing OPDES permit limitations utilizing the WQS and WQS Implementation
				  Criteria are contained in this document.
"Critical dilution"
means 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 for chronic WET testing. The critical dilution for acute WET testing
				  is 100%.
"CWA"
means the Clean Water Act and amendments
				  thereto.
"Defensible analytical data"
means data
				  traceable to a laboratory certified for that pollutant by DEQ under OAC 252:301
				  or data accepted by EPA; data traceable to a municipal laboratory operated by a
				  properly certified laboratory technician by OAC 252:710; or data generated by a
				  state or federal agency laboratory with equivalent certification. Quality
				  assurance procedures, including chain of custody records, shall be adequate and
				  documentable. Quality control data required in the analytical method shall be
				  available from the laboratory upon request.
"DEQ"
means the Oklahoma Department of
				  Environmental Quality.
"Detectable concentration"
means a concentration
				  greater than zero (0) using a ninety-nine percent (99%) probability
				  basis.
"Dilution series"
means a set of proportional
				  effluent dilutions for acute or chronic WET testing based on a specified
				  critical dilution, which is typically the next-to-highest dilution in the
				  series.
"DMR"
means Discharge Monitoring Report, a
				  report submitted to WQD on a monthly basis, or at another frequency specified
				  in an OPDES permit, via a specialized form by OPDES permittees in accordance
				  with the effluent limitations and monitoring requirements of such permit and
				  standard conditions thereof. Information provided on the DMR is entered into
				  EPA's Integrated Compliance Information System (see ICIS).
"ECLS"
means the Environmental Complaints and
				  Local Services Division of DEQ.
"Effluent-dominated receiving stream"
means a
				  stream which receives a point source discharge greater than or equal to
				  one-third (1/3) of its 7Q2 flow.
"ELG"
means Effluent Limitations Guideline, one
				  of a series of technology-based effluent limitations standards, either for
				  direct discharge to navigable waters or for discharge to a POTW, established
				  for certain categories of industries pursuant to Sections 306 and 307 of the
				  CWA.
"Engineer"
means professional engineer
				  registered in the State of Oklahoma.
"EPA"
means the United States Environmental
				  Protection Agency.
"EPA Region 6"
means the EPA Region 6 office in
				  Dallas, Texas.
"Fish and Wildlife Propagation"
means the WQS
				  beneficial use designation for promoting fish and wildlife propagation for the
				  fishery classifications of HLAC, WWAC, CWAC, and Trout Fishery (Put and
				  Take).
"Fish Consumption"
means the WQS beneficial use
				  designation for the protection of human health for the consumption of fish
				  flesh.
"Geometric mean"
means the antilog of the
				  arithmetic average of the natural logarithms of the individual points in a data
				  set.
"HQW"
means High Quality Water, defined as a
				  water of the state which possesses an existing water quality which exceeds that
				  necessary to support the propagation of fishes, shellfishes, wildlife, and
				  recreation in and on the water, and which is designated as such in OAC 252:730,
				  Appendix A.
"Intermittent toxicity"
means two or more lethal
				  or sublethal effect test failures of a routine acute or chronic WET test within
				  any 18-month period.
"IU Permit"
means Industrial User Permit, a
				  permit issued in accordance with the National Pretreatment Regulation at 40
				  C.F.R. Part 403 and, as appropriate, the categorical pretreatment standards at
				  40 C.F.R. Parts 405 through 499.
"LC50 (lethal
				  concentration)"
means the concentration of a toxicant in an external
				  medium that is lethal to fifty percent of the test animals for a specified
				  period of exposure.
"Life of the permit"
means a specific time frame
				  from the date of the issuance of a permit until a new or renewed permit is
				  issued.
"Load Allocation or LA"
means the portion of a
				  receiving water's TMDL that is attributed either to one of its existing or
				  future nonpoint sources or to natural background sources.
"Log transformation"
means the mathematical
				  transformation of an observed data set which results in a data set consisting
				  of the natural logarithms of the individual data points in the observed data
				  set.
"Log-normally distributed"
means a distribution
				  of effluent data which is positively skewed.
"LPD"
means the Land Protection Division of
				  DEQ.
"LUST"
means leaking underground storage
				  tank.
"Major discharger"
means an industrial facility
				  which has a point rating greater than or equal to 80 according to the NPDES
				  permit rating system for industrial discharges; a POTW with a design flow
				  greater than or equal to 1 mgd; or any facility designated as such by EPA in
				  conjunction with the state permitting authority.
"MCL"
means maximum contaminant level.
"Mineral constituents"
means chlorides, sulfates
				  and total dissolved solids collectively.
"Measurable level"
means a detectable
				  concentration for which the analytical signal to noise ratio is significantly
				  high to report a reliable single number. The measurable level corresponds to
				  the lowest point at which the analytical calibration curve is determined based
				  on analyses for the pollutant of concern.
"Municipal"
means a publicly owned treatment
				  works or facilities which are privately owned that generate only domestic waste
				  including mobile home parks, home owner's associations, etc.
"Narrative water quality criterion"
means
				  astatement or other qualitative expression of a chemical, physical, or
				  biological parameter that is assigned to protect a beneficial use.
"NELAC"
means the National Environmental
				  Laboratory Accreditation Council.
"Numerical water quality criterion"
means
				  aconcentration or other quantitative measure of a chemical, physical, or
				  biological parameter that is assigned to protect a beneficial use.
"No Observed Effect Concentration-Lethal"
or
"NOECL"
means the greatest tested effluent
				  dilution in a WET test at and below which lethality to test organisms does not
				  occur that is statistically different from the control (0% effluent) at the 95%
				  confidence level.
"No Observed Effect Concentration-Sublethal"
or
"NOECS"
means the greatest tested effluent
				  dilution in a WET test at and below which a sublethal effect to test organisms
				  does not occur that is statistically different from the control (0% effluent)
				  at the 95% confidence level.
"Non-conservative substance"
means a substance
				  which undergoes significant short-term degradation or change in the environment
				  other than by dilution.
"Nonpoint source"
means a source without a
				  well-defined point of origin.
"OAC"
means Oklahoma Administrative Code.
"Non-pretreatment program POTW"
means a POTW
				  receiving industrial wastewater discharges which does not have an approved
				  pretreatment program, is not in the process of developing a pretreatment
				  program, and has not been directed to develop a pretreatment program.
"NOV"
means Notice of Violation.
"NPDES"
means the National Pollutant Discharge
				  Elimination System, as authorized by Section 402 of the CWA. DEQ has received
				  delegation of the NPDES program in Oklahoma, except for certain jurisdictional
				  areas related to agriculture and the oil and gas industry retained by ODA and
				  Corporation Commission, for which EPA has retained permitting authority. The
				  NPDES program is implemented in Oklahoma via the OPDES program pursuant to the
				  OPDES Act and in accordance with the Memorandum of Agreement between DEQ and
				  EPA relating to administration and enforcement of the delegated NPDES
				  program.
"NRC"
means the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
				  Commission.
"OAC"
means Oklahoma Administrative Code.
"OBDA"
means the Oklahoma Brine Development
				  Act.
"OCC"
means the Oklahoma Conservation
				  Commission.
"ODA"
means the Oklahoma Department of
				  Agriculture.
"ODM"
means the Oklahoma Department of
				  Mines.
"Once-through cooling water"
means cooling water
				  that is not recirculated.
"OPDES"
means Oklahoma Pollutant Discharge
				  Elimination System (see also NPDES).
"OPDES Act"
means the Oklahoma Pollutant
				  Discharge Elimination System Act.
"OPDES Permit"
means a permit issued pursuant to
				  the OPDES Act.
"OPDES Permitting Section"
means the Wastewater
				  Discharge Permit Section of DEQ's Water Quality Division.
"ORW"
means Outstanding Resource Water, defined
				  as a water of the state which constitutes an outstanding resource or is of
				  exceptional recreational and/or ecological significance, and which is
				  designated as such in OAC 252:730, Appendix A.
"O.S."
means Oklahoma Statutes.
"OSHA"
means the Occupational Safety and Health
				  Act and amendments thereto.
"OWQScreen"
means a spreadsheet application
				  package developed by the Wastewater Discharge Permit Section, Water Quality
				  Division, for screening point source discharges against WQS criteria and
				  developing OPDES permit limitations.
"OWRB"
means the Oklahoma Water Resources
				  Board.
"Permit cycle"
means the life of a permit from
				  the date of issuance to the date of expiration as specifically stated on a
				  permit, unless the expiration of the permit is extended by operation of
				  statute, rule or agreement of the permittee and DEQ.
"Period of Record"
means a continuous period for
				  which a facility's effluent data is reviewed for the purposes of characterizing
				  the effluent.
"Persistent toxicity"
means the repeated failure
				  of an acute or chronic WET test. If the required WET testing frequency is
				  monthly, repeated failure occurs upon the failure of two of the three
				  consecutive monthly tests for the same test species. If the required WET
				  testing frequency is other than monthly, repeated failure occurs upon the
				  failure of the required test plus one of the two monthly retests for the same
				  test species in the ensuing two-month period.
"Percent mortality"
means 100% minus percent
				  survival in a WET test effluent dilution.
"Plan"
means Water Quality Standards
				  Implementation Plan.
"Point Source"
means any discernible, confined
				  and discrete conveyance or outlet, including but not limited to any pipe,
				  ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling
				  stock, or vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be
				  discharged into waters of the state. The term "point source" shall not include
				  agricultural stormwater runoff and return flows from irrigated
				  agriculture.
"Positively skewed"
means a data distribution
				  which is asymmetric about its arithmetic mean with a tail in the positive
				  direction.
"POTW"
means publicly owned treatment
				  works.
"Reasonable potential"
means causes, or has a
				  reasonable potential to cause or contribute to an exceedance of a water quality
				  criterion.
"Robust Regression on Order Statistics (Robust ROS)"
means a statistical method that computes a regression line to estimate
				  values for non-detect data and combines these estimates with detected
				  observations to compute sample statistics.
"RPF95"
means the
				  reasonable potential factor for an effluent distribution, based on a 95%
				  probability basis, for the purpose of determining whether an effluent
				  limitation is required.
"RPF95(M)"
means the
				  reasonable potential factor for an effluent distribution, based on a 95%
				  confidence interval and 95% probability basis, and accounting for the size of
				  the effluent data set, for the purpose of determining whether further effluent
				  monitoring is required.
"Receiving water"
means the water of the State
				  to which a wastewater is discharged.
"Regulatory effluent flow"
means the effluent
				  flow, which is water quality criterion-dependent, used in determining
				  reasonable potential and wasteload allocations for a substance.
"SARA"
means the Superfund Amendments and
				  Reauthorization Act (see also CERCLA).
"Scenic River"
means a river or stream so
				  designated pursuant to the Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Act. A scenic river is
				  automatically considered an ORW.
"SDWA"
means the Safe Drinking Water Act and
				  amendments thereto.
"Section 106"
means Section 106 of the CWA,
				  which provides annual grants for water quality management activities and
				  special projects.
"Section 301"
means Section 301 of the CWA,
				  which requires the achievement of EPA-established effluent limitations for
				  industrial and municipal point source dischargers.
"Section 303"
means Section 303 of the CWA,
				  which requires states to review and, as necessary, revise their water quality
				  standards at least every three years.
"Section 303(d)"
means Section 303(d) of the
				  CWA, which requires states to identify waters that do not or are not expected
				  to meet applicable water quality standards with technology-based controls alone
				  (sometimes referred to as the 303(d) List). States establish priority rankings
				  for the listed waters, taking into account pollution severity and existing and
				  designated beneficial uses of the waters. States must develop TMDLs for waters
				  on this list according to priority rankings.
"Section 303(e)"
means Section 303(e) of the
				  CWA, which requires each state to prepare a CPP document.
"Section 306"
means Section 306 of the CWA,
				  which directs the promulgation of effluent limitations and standards of
				  performance for certain categories of industries.
"Section 307"
means Section 307 of the CWA,
				  which provides the process for establishing effluent limitations for those
				  pollutants otherwise known as "priority" pollutants, including pretreatment
				  standards of performance for industrial facility discharges to POTWs.
"Section 401"
means Section 401 of the CWA,
				  which requires applicants for federal licenses or permits for the construction
				  or operation of facilities which may result in discharges into navigable waters
				  to provide the licensing or permitting agency a certification from the state in
				  which the discharge originates or will originate or, if appropriate, from the
				  interstate water pollution control agency having jurisdiction over the
				  navigable waters at the point where the discharge originates or will
				  originate.
"Section 402"
means Section 402 of the CWA,
				  which establishes the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
				  (NPDES).
"SEL"
means the State Environmental
				  Laboratory.
"SMCRA"
means the Surface Mining Control and
				  Reclamation Act of 1977.
"Standard deviation (sx)"
means the standard deviation of an untransformed data set based on a sample of
				  size N.
"Standard deviation of log-transformed x
				  (sln(x))"
means the standard deviation of a log-normally transformed
				  data set based on a sample of size N.
"Sublethal test failure"
means the statistically
				  significant difference (at the 95% confidence level) between reproduction or
				  growth of the test organism at or below the chronic critical dilution after
				  completion of an EPA approved chronic test method.
"SWP3"
means Stormwater Pollution Prevention
				  Plan.
"SWS"
means Sensitive Water Supply, defined as a
				  water of the state which constitutes a sensitive public and private water
				  supply, and which is designated as such in OAC 252:730, Appendix A.
"T95"
means the
				  95th percentile of the effluent temperature
				  distribution (in °C) of sustained two-hour daily maximum effluent
				  temperatures where effluent temperature is recorded continuously and the
				  distribution of daily maximum effluent temperatures where temperature is
				  recorded at discrete intervals of two hours or longer, provided that recording
				  intervals for temperature do not exceed six hours.
"TBLL"
means, in the context of the pretreatment
				  program, Technically Based Local Limits.
"TDS"
means total dissolved solids.
"Technology-based limitation"
means an effluent
				  limitation based on various levels of technologically-achievable
				  performance.
"TIE"
means toxicity identification
				  evaluation.
"TRE"
means toxicity reduction
				  evaluation.
"Trigger Background concentration"
means the
				  background concentration necessary to trigger reasonable potential for a
				  substance to exceed an applicable criterion given a specified mean effluent
				  concentration.
"UAA"
means Use Attainability Analysis.
"UIC"
means Underground Injection
				  Control.
"USAP"
means Use Support Assessment Protocols,
				  as defined at OAC 252:740.
"USFWS"
means the United States Fish and
				  Wildlife Service.
"USGS"
means the United States Geological
				  Survey.
"Wasteload allocation"
or
"WLA"
means the portion of a receiving water's assimilative capacity that is
				  allocated to one of its existing or future point sources of pollution.
"Water quality-based limitation"
means an
				  effluent limitation required to attain and maintain water quality
				  standards.
"WET limit"
means a WET testing limitation in
				  the form of a NOECL, NOECS, or
				  LC50, the exceedance of which constitutes a permit
				  violation.
"WET testing"
means testing for whole effluent
				  toxicity:
(A) using an effluent
				dilution series based on a critical dilution,
(B) with a specific aquatic animal species,
				and
(C) utilizing EPA-approved
				testing methods.
"WQD"
means the Water Quality Division of
				  DEQ.
"WQS"
means the Oklahoma Water Quality
				  Standards, contained at OAC 252:730.
"WQS Implementation Criteria"
means procedures
				  used to implement the WQS, including mixing zones, regulatory effluent and
				  receiving water flows, determination of effluent wasteload allocations and
				  criteria long-term average concentrations, determination of permit limitations
				  and antidegradation policy implementation. Statewide WQS Implementation
				  Criteria of general applicability are found at OAC 252:740. WQS implementation
				  criteria for facilities under DEQ jurisdiction are found in OAC 252:690 and the
				  CPP.
"WQSIP"
means Water Quality Standards
				  Implementation Plan.
Added at 19 Ok Reg 1721,
				  eff 6-13-02; Amended at 24 Ok Reg 1542, eff 6-15-07; Amended at 26 Ok Reg 1962,
				  eff 7-1-09; Amended at 28 Ok Reg 1177, eff 7-1-11; Amended at 28 Ok Reg 1316,
				  eff 7-1-11