Virginia Administrative Code › Title 9 - ENVIRONMENT › Agency 25 - STATE WATER CONTROL BOARD › Chapter 71 - REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE DISCHARGE OF SEWAGE AND OTHER WASTES FROM BOATS › Section 9VAC25-71-10 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 40, No. 24, July 15, 2024
For the purposes of this chapter, the following definitions
				  apply:
"Act" means the Clean Water Act (33 USC §
										1251 et seq.) and standards and regulations
				  promulgated thereunder.
"Board" means the State Water Control Board. When used
				  outside the context of the promulgation of regulations, including regulations
				  to establish general permits, "board" means the Department of Environmental
				  Quality.
"Container seal" means a tamper-evident plastic or wire
				  security device.
"Department" means the Department of Environmental
				  Quality.
"Discharge" includes, but is not limited to, any spilling,
				  leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, or dumping.
"Discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel"
				  means discharges of graywater (galley, bath and shower water), bilge water,
				  cooling water, weather deck runoff, ballast water, oil water separator
				  effluent, and any other discharge from a properly functioning marine engine or
				  propulsion system, shipboard maneuvering system, crew habitability system, or
				  installed major equipment, such as an aircraft carrier elevator or catapult, or
				  from a protective, preservative, or adsorptive application to the hull of a
				  vessel, or a discharge in connection with the testing, maintenance, and repair
				  of a system described above whenever the vessel is waterborne. It does not
				  include a discharge of rubbish, trash, garbage, other such material discharged
				  overboard or pollution.
"Houseboat" means a vessel that is used primarily as a
				  residence and is not used primarily as a means of transportation.
"Industrial wastes" means liquid or other wastes resulting
				  from any process of industry, manufacture, trade or business, or from the
				  development of natural resources.
"Macerator pump valve" means a valve in a vessel's sewage
				  piping that in the open position allows an overboard discharge of sewage via a
				  through-hull fitting.
"Marina" means any installation, operating under public or
				  private ownership, that provides dockage or moorage for boats (exclusive of
				  paddle or rowboats) and provides, through sale, rental or fee basis, any
				  equipment, supply or service (fuel, electricity or water) for the convenience
				  of the public or its lessee, renters or users of its facilities.
"Marine sanitation device" means any equipment installed on a
				  boat or vessel and that is designed to receive, retain, treat, or discharge
				  sewage, and any process to treat such sewage.
"No Discharge Zone" means an area where a state has received
				  an affirmative determination from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that
				  there are adequate facilities for the removal of sewage from vessels (holding
				  tank pump-out facilities) in accordance with § 312(f)(3) of the Act, and
				  where federal approval has been received allowing a complete prohibition of all
				  treated or untreated discharges of sewage from all vessels;
"Other waste" means decayed wood, sawdust, shavings, bark,
				  lime, garbage, refuse, ashes, offal, tar, oil, chemicals, and all other
				  substances, except industrial waste and sewage, which may cause pollution in
				  any state waters.
"Pollution" means such alteration of the physical, chemical
				  or biological properties of any state waters as will or is likely to create a
				  nuisance or render such waters (i) harmful or detrimental or injurious to the
				  public health, safety or welfare, or to the health of animals, fish or aquatic
				  life; (ii) unsuitable with reasonable treatment for use as present or possible
				  future sources of public water supply; or (iii) unsuitable for recreational,
				  commercial, industrial, agricultural, or other reasonable uses; provided that
				  (a) an alteration of the physical, chemical, or biological property of state
				  waters, or a discharge or deposit of sewage, industrial wastes or other wastes
				  to state waters by any owner which by itself is not sufficient to cause
				  pollution, but which, in combination with such alteration of or discharge or
				  deposit to state waters by other owners, is sufficient to cause pollution; (b)
				  the discharge of untreated sewage by any owner into state waters; and (c)
				  contributing to the contravention of standards of water quality duly
				  established by the board, are "pollution" for the terms and purposes of this
				  chapter.
"Pump-out facility" means any device, equipment or method of
				  removing sewage from a marine sanitation device. Also it shall include any
				  holding tanks either portable, movable or permanently installed, and any sewage
				  treatment method or disposable equipment used to treat, or ultimately dispose
				  of, sewage removed from boats.
"Sewage" means human body wastes, the wastes from toilets and
				  other receptacles intended to receive or retain human wastes, and
				  liquid-carried human wastes together with such industrial wastes and other
				  liquid as may be present.
"State" means the Commonwealth of Virginia.
"State waters" means all water, on the surface and under the
				  ground, wholly or partially within or bordering the Commonwealth of Virginia or
				  within its jurisdiction, including wetlands.
"Vessel" means every description of watercraft or other
				  artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used on the waters of the
				  state, including boats and houseboats regardless of size, means of propulsion
				  or place of registry.
"Y-valve" means a valve in a vessel's sewage piping that in
				  the open position allows an overboard discharge of sewage via a through-hull
				  fitting, and in the closed position prevents an overboard discharge and retains
				  sewage in a holding tank.
Statutory Authority: § 62.1-44.33 of the Code of
					 Virginia; § 312 of the federal Clean Water
					 Act.