Rhode Island Code of Regulations › Title 490 - Water Resources Board › Chapter 00 - N/A › Subchapter 00 - N/A › Part 2 - Rules and Procedures for Water Supply Systems Management Planning › Section 490-RICR-00-00-2.6 - Definitions

Current through June 14, 2024
A. For the purposes of these regulations, the
				 following terms shall have the following meanings:
1. "Abandoned water supply sources" means the
				 sources that are no longer used or maintained, such as permanently disconnected
				 surface waters or wells.
2. "Act"
				 means the Water Supply Systems Management Act, R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter
				 46-15.3.
3. "Active water supply
				 sources" means RI Department of Health approved sources of supply connected to a
				 water supply system and available for distribution; these sources may be surface
				 waters or wells, residential or other uses.
4. "Aquifer" means a geological formation,
				 groups of formations, or part of a formation capable of yielding a significant
				 amount of groundwater to wells, springs, or surface water.
5. "Available water" means the maximum amount
				 of water that can dependably be supplied, taking into account limitations imposed
				 by hydraulic or other considerations. In determining the available water,
				 estimates of the safe yield of surface reservoirs and/or well capacity of
				 groundwater sources shall be utilized as appropriate. Water committed by another
				 water supplier through interconnections may be included in the determination of
				 available water. Once accounted for in a water system's calculation of available
				 water, the same volume of water may not be accounted for in another supplier's
				 calculation of available water. Temporarily inactive, abandoned, and emergency
				 water supply sources shall not be included unless approved by the Board. System
				 storage shall not be included in the calculation of available water.
6. "Board" means the Rhode Island Water
				 Resources Board as established by R.I. Gen. Laws Chapters 46-15 and 46-15.1.
7. "Commercial agriculture
				 producers" means producers with gross income from sale of agricultural
				 commodities of $2,500.00 or more during a calendar year.
8. "Commission" means Public Utilities
				 Commission.
9. "Comprehensive plans"
				 means local comprehensive plans as required by R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter
				 45-22.2.
10. "Conservation" means
				 methods, procedures, and devices designed to promote efficient use of water and
				 to eliminate waste of water.
11.
				 "Consumption" means all water delivered by water suppliers for its intended use
				 for industrial, commercial, agricultural, residential or other uses.
12. "Demand, average daily" means the total
				 volume of water supplied to the system including changes in storage over the
				 representative period divided by the number of days in that representative
				 period. The most recent representative period of record shall be utilized and
				 shall not be affected by unusual demand conditions such as drought or a
				 significant temporary increase in demand.
13. "Demand management" means any conscious
				 effort to modify water use for efficient utilization of available
				 supply.
14. "Demand, maximum daily"
				 means the maximum one-day rate of water supplied to the system including changes
				 in storage experienced over the most recent year not affected by unusual demand
				 conditions, such as drought or a significant temporary increase in
				 demand.
15. "Demand, peak hourly"
				 means the maximum one-hour rate of water supplied to the system including changes
				 in storage experienced over the most recent year.
16. "Distribution facilities" means the pipes
				 and appurtenant facilities employed specifically to deliver, to dispense, to
				 render or to circulate potable water directly to the consumer.
17. "Drought" means a condition of dryness due
				 to lower than normal precipitation. For water supply purposes drought is
				 associated with safe yield especially for conditions where a system cannot be
				 replenished and failure is anticipated.
18. "Eligible expenditure" means the
				 acquisition of a fee simple interest or of a conservation restriction, as that
				 term is defined in R.I. Gen. Laws §
											34-39-2(a).
				 or other interest in watershed lands including, but not limited to, costs and
				 expenses relating to the improvement of such lands or interests therein,
				 maintenance of the lands or roads or interests therein, and taxes thereon, and
				 the costs of preparation of Water Quality Protection Plan (WQPP) components and
				 updates, and related property surveys and appraisals, or the funding of the
				 construction of physical improvements that directly protect water supply.
				 Watershed lands eligible for protection may be located in or out of state. No
				 funds shall be used to extend service lines or expand system capacity.
19. "Emergency water supply sources" means not
				 regular sources of supply but supplies held in reserve for use in emergencies.
				 The use of emergency water supply sources must be approved by the RI Department
				 of Health; these may be surface waters or wells.
20. "Fund" means the Water Quality Protection
				 Fund according to R.I. Gen. Laws §§
											46-15.3-5 and
				  46-15.3-9.
21. "Groundwater recharge" means the process of
				 addition of water to the zone of saturation, that is, the zone beneath the water
				 table.
22. "Institutional water
				 supplier" means any public water system as defined in the rules and regulations
				 pertaining to public drinking water under R.I. Gen. Laws §
											46-13-2 which does not
				 sell water but supplies more than 50 million gallons per year of drinking water
				 and is governmental or quasigovernmental in nature.
23. "Major user" means any public or private
				 organization or entity using more than 3 million gallons of water per year (a
				 water system may define a major user using less than 3 million gallons of water
				 per year).
24. "Master meter" means a
				 meter that measures water from a source of supply or from other water
				 suppliers.
25. "Metered supply" means
				 the quantity of water measured at the points of entry into the transmission and
				 distribution system.
26. "Non-account
				 water" means the difference between the metered supply and the metered
				 consumption for a specific period including an allowance for
				 firefighting.
27. "Raw water" means
				 water in its natural state prior to any treatment.
28. "Recharge area" means the land surface from
				 which water is added to the zone of saturation. The recharge area for a
				 particular well or aquifer, for instance, is that land surface from which water
				 moves to the well or aquifer or may move to the well or aquifer under certain
				 hydraulic conditions.
29. "Safe
				 Drinking Water Act" or "SDWA" means the Safe Drinking Water Act, Pub. Law 93-523,
				 88 Stat. 1660 (1974) and Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996,
				 Pub. Law
				 104-182, 110 Stat. 1613 (1996), which establish
				 standards for drinking water safety.
30. "Safe yield (surface water)" means a
				 sustainable withdrawal that can be continuously supplied from a surface water
				 supply source without adverse effects throughout a critical dry period with a 1%
				 chance of occurrence, or one that is equivalent to the drought of record,
				 whichever is more severe.
31. "Safe
				 yield (aquifer or well)" means the rate at which groundwater can be withdrawn
				 without producing unacceptable or undesirable effects such as drawdowns or
				 changes in water quality.
32.
				 "Saturated thickness" means the thickness of an aquifer measured from the water
				 table to an essentially impermeable boundary; such boundary is typically taken to
				 be the top of the bedrock surface.
33. "Service area" means the geographic
				 boundary within which service connections to customers of a water supply system
				 are committed by charter of the water commission, board, or authority.
34. "Source" means the raw water upon which a
				 public water supply system depends, and refers to both groundwater and surface
				 water.
35. "Specific capacity" means
				 the discharge of a well per unit of drawdown.
36. "State guide plan" means the goals,
				 policies, and plans or plan elements for the physical, economic, and social
				 development of the State, adopted by the State Planning Council in accordance
				 with R.I. Gen. Laws §
											42-11-10.
37. "Susceptibility determination"
				 means an analysis of the potential for a water supplier to draw water
				 contaminated by inventoried sources at concentrations that would pose concern.
				 Such a determination, therefore, would likely take into account hydrologic and
				 hydrogeologic factors, inherent characteristics of the contaminants (e.g.,
				 toxicity, environmental fate and transport); and characteristics of the potential
				 source of the contaminant (location, likelihood of release, effectiveness of
				 mitigation measures). In small source water protection areas, where differences
				 in distances between sources and intake are small, and hydrologic and
				 hydrogeologic factors are relatively constant, susceptibility of a water supply
				 is related to the likelihood of a significant release and the inherent
				 characteristics of the source (e.g., toxicity, fate and transport,
				 etc.).
38. "Total reservoir storage
				 capacity" means the reservoir volume at the normal full pool level or spillway
				 elevation.
39. "Transmission
				 facilities" means the pipes, pumping stations, and storage facilities required to
				 carry high volumes of potable water from a water source to distribution
				 facilities, or throughout an area for the purpose of supplying water to the
				 general population, or wholesale customers.
40. "Transmissivity" means a measure of the
				 ability of an aquifer to transmit a fluid. It can be quantified as the hydraulic
				 conductivity multiplied by the saturated thickness.
41. "Useable reservoir storage capacity" means
				 the difference between the total reservoir storage capacity and the volume at the
				 minimum reservoir storage level as determined by the intake pipe elevation or the
				 water elevation below which water cannot be treated to meet water quality
				 standards.
42. "User category" means
				 metered single-family residential, multi-residential, commercial, industrial, or
				 wholesale purchaser (for example, another water supplier), metered water system
				 usage, water used for firefighting purposes and non-account water.
a. Multi-Residential shall include apartments,
				 condominiums, nursing homes, college dormitories, correctional facilities and any
				 other commercial or institutional entity, which provides nontransitory housing
				 and are not metered separately.
b.
				 Commercial shall include non-governmental institutions and entities identified by
				 the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), published by the
				 Executive Office of the President through the Office of Management and
				 Budget.
c. Non-account water may
				 include unmetered water usage, leaks, theft, etc.
43. "Watershed" means those land areas, which
				 because of their topography, subsurface characteristics, and drainage patterns,
				 act as collectors of raw water, which replenish or recharge surface and ground
				 water supply sources.
44. "Water
				 supplier" means any municipality, municipal department, agency, district,
				 authority, or other entity engaged in or authorized to engage in the supply,
				 treatment, transmission or distribution of drinking water on a wholesale or
				 retail sales basis.
45. "Water supply
				 emergency" shall include, but not be limited to, one or a combination of the
				 following situations:
a. Mechanical failure or
				 similar type of emergency including loss of power, loss of pumping capacity, loss
				 of storage capability or major breaks or leaks which result in an inability to
				 meet average daily or maximum daily demand for water.
b. Water quality emergencies due to
				 contamination of the water supply, the distribution system or storage tanks which
				 result in an inability to meet average daily and maximum daily demand with
				 remaining public water supplies.
c.
				 Seasonal water shortages or inadequacy of source, distribution system or storage
				 capacity to meet water supply needs.
46. "Water supply sources temporarily inactive"
				 means seasonal sources of supply or sources temporarily not in use due to
				 mechanical or quality problems or lack of demand. These sources may be surface
				 waters or wells and, depending upon the reason for the "temporarily inactive"
				 status, have RI Department of Health approval or must be approved by the RI
				 Department of Health prior to use.
47. "Water system" means any combination of
				 interconnected sources and facilities used for supplying potable water. Water
				 systems are owned and operated by water suppliers.
48. "Wellhead protection area" or "WPA" means
				 the surface and subsurface area surrounding a public drinking water well through
				 which contaminants are reasonably likely to move toward and reach the wellhead.
				 Commonly called "well field" or "recharge area".