Wyoming Administrative Code › Agency 020 - Environmental Quality, Dept. of › Sub-Agency 0011 - Water Quality › Chapter 9 - WYOMING GROUNDWATER POLLUTION CONTROL PERMIT › Section 9-2 - Definitions

Current through July 13, 2024
The following definitions supplement those definitions
				  contained in Section
										35-11-103
				  of the Wyoming Environmental Quality Act.
(a) "Aquifer" means a zone, stratum or group
				of strata that can store and transmit water in sufficient quantities for a
				specific use.
(b) "Area of review"
				means the area for which information and analyses will be submitted as part of
				a groundwater pollution control permit application, and reviewed for issuance
				of a permit; the extent of the area will never be less than an area within a
				1/4 mile radius of the discharge site. The area of review may coincide with a
				permit area and adjacent lands, or may be determined by use of a mathematical
				model and formula that have been developed to describe groundwater hydraulics
				and flow.
Methodology for determining the area of review is not limited
				  to a specific method, as long as the method used can be documented as being
				  appropriate. The formula recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection
				  Agency for determining the radius of endangering influence may be used. This
				  formula is given as:
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				  to view image
where:
R = Radius from injection or discharge well (feet)
K = Hydraulic conductivity of the injection or discharge zone
				  (feet/day)
H = Thickness of the injection or discharge zone
				  (feet)
t = Time of injection or discharge (days)
S = Storage coefficient (dimension less)
Q = Injection or discharge rate (feet /day)
hbo = Original hydrostatic head of
				  formation fluid (feet) measured from top of injection or discharge zone
hw = Hydrostatic head of underground
				  source of water (feet) measured from top of injection or discharge zone
SpGB = Specific
				  gravity of formation fluid (dimension less)
[PI] = 3.14
(c) "Background" means the constituents or
				parameters and the concentrations or measurements that describe water quality
				and water quality variability prior to the subsurface discharge.
(d) "Best management alternative" means the
				subsurface discharge operation or action described that, after problem
				assessment and examination of alternative methods, is proposed as the most
				practically effective (including technological, economic, environmental and
				institutional considerations) means of waste management.
(e) "Commercial waste" means waste or
				pollutants resulting from a commercial activity.
(f) "Discharge area" means the area
				designated by an owner/operator and/or specified in a permit or permit
				application as the area that will be involved in a subsurface discharge
				operation. It may coincide with the area of review.
(g) "Discharge zone" means the receiver
				proposed in the permit application or into which the permittee has been
				authorized by permit to discharge pollution or wastes.
(h) "Domestic waste" means pollutants or
				waste from residences, business buildings, institutions and public water
				supplies.
(i) "Dry well" means any
				well that, upon completion, does not collect groundwater.
(j) "Endangerment" means exposure to actions
				or activities that could pollute Groundwaters of the State.
(k) "Fluid" means any material that flows or
				moves whether semisolid, liquid, sludge, gas or any other form or
				state.
(l) "Groundwater" means
				subsurface water that fills available openings in rock or soil materials such
				that they may be considered water saturated tinder hydrostatic
				pressure.
(m) "Groundwaters of the
				State" are all bodies of underground water that are wholly or partially within
				the boundaries of the State.
(n)
				"Hazardous material (or wastes)" means any matter (or wastes) of any
				description including petroleum related products and radioactive material that,
				when discharged into any waters of the State, presents an imminent and
				substantial hazard to public health or welfare and shall include all materials
				(or wastes) so designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the
				Federal Register for March 13, 1978 (Part III),
Water Programs,
				Hazardous Substances
.
(o) "Industrial waste" is waste or pollutants
				resulting from an industrial activity.
(p) "Logging data" means the written record
				progressively describing the strata and geologic and hydrologic character
				thereof to include electrical, radioactivity and similar surveys, a lithologic
				description of all cores, and test data.
(q) "Mechanical integrity" means the sound
				and unimpaired condition of all components of the well or facility or system
				for control of a subsurface discharge and associated activities.
(r) "Mining wastes" refers to waste or
				pollutants resulting from any mining activity.
(s) "Monitor" means obtain fluid samples for
				analysis and/or water level measurements, or observe and record.
(t) "Municipal waste" means pollutants or
				waste from a municipal collection, storage or treatment facility.
(u) "New subsurface discharge facility" means
				a subsurface discharge facility for which construction starts after the
				effective date of these regulations.
(v) "Permit" means a Wyoming Groundwater
				Pollution Control Permit, unless otherwise identified.
(w) "Recharge" means replenishment of
				groundwater.
(x) "Receiver" means
				any zone, interval, formation or unit in the subsurface into which fluids and
				pollutants are discharged.
(y)
				"Special process discharge" is a subsurface discharge for the purpose of
				recovering a product or fluid at the surface, and includes any process used to
				obtain products or solutions of uranium, copper, oil shale,
				hydrocarbon-impregnated sands and sandstones and tar sands not amenable to oil
				field production modes, sulfur, coal and lignite, bedded salt, sodium,
				potassium, phosphate or any other naturally occurring mineral commodity;
				excepting, it does not include the primary or enhanced recovery of naturally
				occurring oil and gas.
(z)
				"Subsidence" means a lowering of a portion of the earth's surface or substrata
				that is detectable by visual observation or by instrumentation above or below
				the surface.
(aa) "Subsidence
				control discharge" means a discharge into a non-oil or gas producing receiver
				to reduce or eliminate subsidence associated with the withdrawal of subsurface
				fluids or solids.
(bb) "Subsurface"
				means any level below the surface.
(cc) "Subsurface discharge" means a discharge
				to a receiver.
(dd) "Subsurface
				discharge facility" means any construction, such as a well, or utilization by a
				permittee to discharge pollution or waste into a receiver.
(ee) "System" means each and all components
				of a subsurface discharge facility.
(ff) "Toxic characteristics (or wastes)" are
				those characteristics (or wastes) that are due to the presence of: Those
				substances or combinations of substances including disease-causing agents,
				that, after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion, inhalation or assimilation
				into any environmentally significant organism, either directly from the
				environmental or indirectly by ingestion through food chains, may cause death,
				disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic malfunctions, physiological
				malfunctions (including malfunctions in reproduction) or physical deformation
				in such organisms or their offspring; and include all substances so designated
				as toxic or hazardous by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the
				Federal Register for December 24, 1975 (Part IV),
Water Programs,
				National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulations
.
(gg) "Vadose zone" means the unsaturated zone
				in the earth, between the land surface and the top of the first saturated
				aquifer that is not a perched water aquifer. The vadose zone characteristically
				contains liquid water under less than atmospheric pressure and water vapor and
				air or other gases at atmospheric pressure. Perched water bodies exist within
				the vadose zone.
(hh) "Well" means
				an opening, excavation, shaft or hole in the ground allowing or used for a
				subsurface discharge or for the purpose of extracting a fluid, mineral, product
				or pollutant from the subsurface or for monitoring.