North Carolina Administrative Code › Title 15A - Environmental Quality › Chapter 02 - Environmental Management › Subchapter C - WELL CONSTRUCTION STANDARDS › Section .0100 - CRITERIA AND STANDARDS APPLICABLE TO WATER-SUPPLY AND › Section 02C .0102 - DEFINITIONS

Current through Register Vol. 39, No. 2, July 15, 2024
The terms used in this Subchapter shall be as defined in
					 G.S.
					 87-85 and as follows:
(1) "Abandon" means to discontinue the use of
				  and to seal a well according to the requirements of
				  15A NCAC
				  02C .0113 of this Section.
(2) "Access port" means an opening in a well
				  casing or well head installed for the purpose of determining the position of
				  the water level in the well or to facilitate disinfection.
(3) "Agent" means any person who by agreement
				  with a well owner has authority to act on his or her behalf in executing
				  applications for permits. The agent may be either general agent or a limited
				  agent authorized to do one particular act.
(4) "Annular Space" means the space between
				  the casing and the walls of a borehole or outer casing or the space between a
				  liner pipe and well casing.
(5)
				  "Artesian flowing well" means a well in which groundwater flows above the land
				  surface without the use of a pump and, under natural conditions, the static
				  water level or hydraulic head elevation is greater than the land surface
				  elevation.
(6) "ASTM" means the
				  American Society for Testing and Materials.
(7) "Casing" means pipe or tubing constructed
				  of materials and having dimensions and weights as specified in the rules of
				  this Subchapter, that is installed in a borehole during or after completion of
				  the borehole to support the side of the hole and thereby prevent caving, to
				  allow completion of a well, to prevent formation material from entering the
				  well, to prevent the loss of drilling fluids into permeable formations, and to
				  prevent entry of contamination.
(8)
				  "Clay" means a substance comprised of natural, inorganic, fine-grained
				  crystalline mineral fragments that, when mixed with water, forms a pasty,
				  moldable mass that preserves its shape when air dried.
(9) "Commission" means the North Carolina
				  Environmental Management Commission.
(10) "Consolidated rock" means rock that is
				  firm and coherent, solidified or cemented, such as granite, gneiss, limestone,
				  slate or sandstone, that has not been decomposed by weathering.
(11) "Contaminate" or "Contamination" means
				  the introduction of foreign materials of such nature, quality, and quantity
				  into the groundwaters as to exceed the groundwater quality standards set forth
				  in 15A
				  NCAC 02L .0200.
(12) "Department" is as defined in
				  G.S.
				  87-85(5a).
(13) "Designed capacity" means that capacity
				  that is equal to the yield that is specified by the well owner or his or her
				  agent prior to construction of the well.
(14) "Director" means the Director of the
				  Division of Water Resources or the Director's delegate.
(15) "Division" means the Division of Water
				  Resources.
(16) "Domestic use"
				  means water used for drinking, bathing or other household purposes, livestock,
				  or gardens.
(17) "Formation
				  Material" means naturally occurring material generated during the drilling
				  process that is composed of sands, silts, clays or fragments of rock and that
				  is not in a dissolved state.
(18)
				  "GPM" and "GPD" mean gallons per minute and gallons per day,
				  respectively.
(19) "Grout" means a
				  material approved in accordance with Rule .0107(e) of this Section for use in
				  sealing the annular space of a well or liner or for sealing a well during
				  abandonment.
(20) "Lead Free" means
				  materials containing not more than a weighted average of 0.25 percent lead per
				  Section 1417 of the Safe Drinking Water Act amended January 4, 2014.
(21) "Liner pipe" means pipe that is
				  installed inside a completed and cased well for the purpose of preventing the
				  entrance of contamination into the well or for repairing ruptured, corroded or
				  punctured casing or screens.
(22)
				  "Monitoring well" means any well constructed for the primary purpose of
				  obtaining information about the physical, chemical, radiological, or biological
				  characteristics of groundwater or other liquids, or for the observation or
				  measurement of groundwater levels. This definition excludes lysimeters,
				  tensiometers, and other devices used to investigate the characteristics of the
				  unsaturated zone but includes piezometers, a type of monitoring well
				  constructed solely for the purpose of determining groundwater levels. This
				  definition includes all monitoring well types, including temporary wells and
				  wells using Geoprobe® or direct-push technology
				  (DPT).
(23) "Owner" means any
				  person who holds the fee or other property rights in the well being
				  constructed.
(24) "Pitless
				  adapters" or "pitless units" are devices manufactured to the standards
				  specified under
				  15A NCAC
				  02C .0107(j)(5) for the
				  purpose of allowing a subsurface lateral connection between a well and plumbing
				  appurtenances.
(25) "Public water
				  system" means a water system as defined in
				  15A NCAC
				  18C, which is hereby incorporated by
				  reference, including subsequent amendments.
(26) "Recovery well" means any well
				  constructed for the purpose of removing contaminated groundwater or other
				  liquids from the subsurface.
(27)
				  "Saline" means having a chloride concentration of more than 250 milligrams per
				  liter.
(28) "Secretary" means the
				  Secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality or the Secretary's
				  delegate.
(29) "Settleable solids"
				  means the volume of solid particles in a well-mixed one liter sample that will
				  settle out of suspension, in the bottom of an Imhoff Cone, after one
				  hour.
(30) "Sewer Lateral" means
				  the sewer pipe connecting a structure to a wastewater treatment collection
				  system or a municipal or commercial sewer main line.
(31) "Site" means the land or water area
				  where any facility, activity or situation is physically located, including
				  adjacent or other land used in connection with the facility, activity or
				  situation.
(32) "Specific capacity"
				  means the yield of the well expressed in gallons per minute per foot of
				  draw-down of the water level (gpm/ft.-dd).
(33) "Static water level" means the level at
				  which the water stands in the well when the well is not being pumped and is
				  expressed as the distance from a fixed reference point to the water level in
				  the well.
(34) "Suspended solids"
				  means the weight of those solid particles in a sample that are retained by a
				  standard glass microfiber filter, with pore openings of one and one-half
				  microns, when dried at a temperature between 103 and 105 degrees
				  Fahrenheit.
(35) "Temporary well"
				  means a well that is constructed to determine aquifer characteristics and that
				  will be permanently abandoned or converted to a permanent well within 21 days
				  (504 hours) of the completion of drilling of the borehole.
(36) "Turbidity" means the cloudiness in
				  water due to the presence of suspended particles such as clay or silt that may
				  create laboratory analytical difficulties for determining contamination above
				  15A NCAC
				  02L.
(37) "Vent" means a permanent opening in the
				  well casing or well head, installed for the purpose of allowing changes in the
				  water level in a well due to natural atmospheric changes or to pumping. A vent
				  may also serve as an access port.
(38) "Water-tight" means put or fit together
				  so tightly that water cannot enter or pass through. For example, water-tight
				  pipe may be filled with water and tested under pressure between three and five
				  pounds per square inch (psi) for several minutes to detect leaks.
(39) "Well" is as defined in
				  G.S.
				  87-85(14).
(40) "Well capacity" means the maximum
				  quantity of water that a well will yield continuously as determined by methods
				  outlined in
				  15A NCAC
				  02C .0110.
(41) "Well head" means the upper terminal of
				  the well including adapters, ports, valves, seals, and other
				  attachments.
(42) "Well system"
				  means two or more wells connected to the same distribution or collection system
				  or, if not connected to a distribution or collection system, two or more wells
				  serving the same site.
(43) "Yield"
				  means the volume of water or other fluid per time that can be discharged from a
				  well under a given set of circumstances.
Authority
					 G.S.
					 87-85;
					 87-87;
					 143-215.3;
Eff.
					 February 1, 1976;
Amended Eff. September 1, 2009; April 1, 2001;
					 December 1, 1992; July 1, 1988; March 1, 1985; September 1, 1984;
Readopted Eff. September 1, 2019.