North Dakota Administrative Code › Title 89 - Water Commission › Article 89-04 - Water Management Plans for Surface Coal Mining Operations › Chapter 89-04-01 - General Provisions › Section 89-04-01-06 - Definitions

Current through Supplement No. 393, July, 2024
Unless the context otherwise requires, the following
				  definitions apply to this article:
1. "Acre-foot" of water is the volume required to cover one
				  acre [.404 hectares], one foot [30.48 centimeters] deep. Acre-foot is the term
				  commonly associated with reservoir storage. It is equal to 325,850 gallons
				  [1,233,342 liters].
2. "Active capacity" is the amount that can be released and
				  utilized.
3. "Aquifer" means a zone, stratum, or group of strata that
				  can store and transmit water in sufficient quantities for a specific use.
4. "Board of commissioners" means the board of commissioners
				  of a water management district.
5. "Commission" means the state water commission (governor,
				  commissioner of agriculture, and citizen members).
6. "Compaction" means the reduction of pore spaces among the
				  particles of soil or rock, generally done by running heavy equipment over the
				  earth materials.
7. "Dam" means any artificial barrier or obstruction,
				  together with appurtenant works, if any, across a stream channel, water course,
				  or natural drainage area which impounds or diverts water. All structures
				  necessary to impound a single body of water shall be considered as one dam.
8. "Dead storage" is the amount of stored water that cannot
				  be released due to physical conditions.
9. "Dike" means an embankment constructed of earth and or
				  other suitable materials to protect land against overflow from streams or from
				  diffused surface waters.
10. "District" means water management district.
11. "Embankment" means an artificial deposit of material that
				  is raised above the natural surface of the land and used to contain, divert, or
				  store water, support roads or railways, or other similar purposes.
12. "Enlargement" means any change or addition to an existing
				  dam or its appurtenant works which increases, or may increase, the maximum
				  quantity of water which can be stored therein.
13. "Ground water" means subsurface water that fills
				  available openings in rock or soil materials such that they may be considered
				  water-saturated.
14. "Hydrologic balance" means the relationship between the
				  quality and quantity of inflow to, outflow from, and storage in a hydrologic
				  unit such as drainage basin, aquifer soil zone, lake, or reservoir. It
				  encompasses the quantity and quality relationships between precipitation,
				  runoff, evaporation, and the change in ground and surface water storage.
15. "Hydrologic regime" means the entire state of water
				  movement in a given area. It is a function of the climate, and includes the
				  phenomena by which water first occurs as atmospheric water vapor, passes into a
				  liquid or solid form and falls as precipitation, moves thence along or into the
				  ground surface, and returns to the atmosphere as vapor by means of evaporation
				  and transpiration.
16. "Impoundment" means a closed basin formed naturally or
				  artificially built, which is dammed or excavated for the retention of water,
				  sediment, or waste.
17. "Intermittent or perennial stream" means a stream or part
				  of a stream that flows continuously during all (perennial) or continuously for
				  at least thirty consecutive days (intermittent) of the calendar year as a
				  result of ground water discharge or surface runoff. The term does not include
				  an ephemeral stream which is one that flows continuously for less than thirty
				  consecutive days of a calendar year and only in direct response to
				  precipitation in the immediate watershed and whose channel bottom is always
				  above the local water table.
18. "Owner" includes all who own, control, operate, maintain,
				  manage, or propose to construct a dam, also their agents, lessees, trustees,
				  and receivers.
19. "Permittee" means any individual, partnership,
				  association, society, joint stock company, firm, company, corporation,
				  instrumentality of the state, any governmental subdivision, or other business
				  organization holding a permit to conduct surface coal mining and reclamation
				  operations issued by the North Dakota public service commission.
20. "Recharge capacity" means the ability of the soils and
				  underlying materials to allow precipitation and runoff to infiltrate and reach
				  the zone of saturation.
21. "Recurrence interval" means the precipitation event
				  expected to occur, on the average, once in a specified interval. For example,
				  the ten-year twenty-four-hour precipitation event would be that
				  twenty-four-hour precipitation event expected to be exceeded on the average
				  once in ten years. Magnitude of such events are as defined by the national
				  weather service technical paper number forty, "Rainfall Frequency Atlas of the
				  U.S.", May 1961, and subsequent amendments or equivalent regional or rainfall
				  probability information developed therefrom.
22. "Runoff" means precipitation that flows overland before
				  entering a defined stream channel and becoming streamflow.
23. "Safety factor" means the ratio of the available shear
				  strength to the developed shear stress on a potential surface of sliding
				  determined by accepted engineering practice.
24. "Sediment" means undissolved organic and inorganic
				  material transported or deposited by water.
25. "Sedimentation pond" means any natural or artificial
				  structure or depression used to remove sediment from water and store sediment
				  or other debris.
26. "Slope" means average inclination of a surface, measured
				  from the horizontal. Normally expressed as a unit of vertical distance to a
				  given number of units of horizontal distance, e.g., 1v to 5h equals twenty
				  percent equals eleven and three-tenths degrees.
27. "Specifications" are written descriptions of the proposed
				  construction.
28. "Stabilize" means any method used to control movement of
				  soil, spoil piles, or areas of disturbed earth and includes increasing bearing
				  capacity, increasing shear strength, draining, compacting, or revegetating.
29. "State engineer" means the state engineer, appointed
				  pursuant to North Dakota Century Code section 61-03-01, who is also the chief
				  executive officer of the commission.
30. "Surface coal mining operations" means:
a. Mining of coal by removing the suitable plant growth
				  materials and the overburden lying above natural deposits thereof, and mining
				  directly from the natural deposits thereby exposed.
b. The areas upon which such activities occur or where such
				  activities disturb the natural land surface. Such areas shall also include any
				  adjacent land, the use of which is incidental to any such activities, all lands
				  affected by the construction of new roads or the improvement or use of existing
				  roads to gain access to the site of such activities and for haulage and
				  excavation, workings, impoundments, dams, ventilation shafts, entryways, refuse
				  banks, dumps, stockpiles, overburden piles, spoil banks, culm banks, tailings,
				  holes or depressions, repair areas, storage areas, processing areas, shipping
				  areas and other areas upon which are sited structures, facilities, or other
				  property or material on the surface, resulting from or incident to such
				  activities.
31. "Surface coal mining and reclamation" means surface coal
				  mining operations and all activities necessary and incidental to the
				  reclamation of such operations. This term includes the term "surface coal
				  mining operations".
32. "Surface water" means water, either flowing or standing,
				  on the surface of the earth.
33. "Waste" means earth materials, which are combustible,
				  physically unstable, or acid-forming or toxic-forming, wasted or otherwise
				  separated from product coal and are slurried or otherwise transported from coal
				  processing facilities or preparation plants after physical or chemical
				  processing, cleaning, or concentrating of coal.
34. "Water table" means upper surface of a zone of
				  saturation, where the body of ground water is not confined by an overlying
				  impermeable zone.
General Authority:
NDCC 28-32-02, 61-02-11,
				  61-03-13
Law Implemented:
NDCC 61-02-14