Washington Administrative Code › Title 173 - Ecology, Department of (See also Titles 197, 317, 372, and 508) › Chapter 173-351 - Criteria for municipal solid waste landfills › Section 173-351-100 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 24-14, July 15, 2024
Unless otherwise noted, all terms contained in this part are
				defined by their plain meaning. This section contains definitions for terms
				that appear throughout this regulation; additional definitions appear in the
				specific sections to which they apply.
"Active area" means that part of a facility that includes the
				active portion and portions of a facility that recycle, store, treat, or
				dispose of solid (including liquid) wastes. The active area includes leachate
				treatment facilities and runoff ponds. It excludes run-on ponds and on-site
				roads which are used for any purpose; on-site roads are considered part of the
				buffer zone. See active portion and buffer zone definition below.
"Active life" means the period beginning with the initial
				receipt of solid waste and ending at completion of closure activities in
				accordance with WAC
				173-351-500(1),
				Closure criteria.
"Active portion" means that part of a facility or MSWLF unit
				that has received or is receiving wastes and that has not been closed in
				accordance with WAC
				173-351-500(1),
				Closure criteria.
"Airport" means public-use airport open to the public without
				prior permission and without restrictions within the physical capacities of
				available facilities. See WAC
				173-351-130(2)(d)(i).
"Areas susceptible to mass movement" means those areas of
				influence (i.e., areas characterized as having an active or substantial
				possibility of mass movement) where the movement of earth material at, beneath,
				or adjacent to the MSWLF unit, because of natural or human-induced events,
				results in the downslope transport of soil and rock material by means of
				gravitational influence. Areas of mass movement include, but are not limited
				to, landslides, avalanches, debris slides and flows, soil fluction, block
				sliding, and rock fall. See WAC
				173-351-130(7)(b)(iv).
"Biosolids" means municipal sewage sludge that is a primarily
				organic, semisolid product resulting from the wastewater treatment process,
				that can be beneficially recycled and meets all requirements under chapter
				70.95J RCW. Biosolids includes septic tank sludge, also known as septage, that
				can be beneficially recycled and meets all requirements of chapter 70.95J
				RCW.
"Bird hazard" means an increase in the likelihood of
				bird/aircraft collisions that may cause damage to the aircraft or injury to its
				occupants. See WAC
				173-351-130(2)(d)(ii).
"Buffer zone" means that part of a facility which lies between
				the active area and the property boundary.
"Channel migration zone" means the lateral extent of likely
				movement of a stream or river channel along a stream reach.
"Cleanup action plan" means the document that selects the
				cleanup action and specifies cleanup standards and other requirements for the
				cleanup action. These include:
. A final cleanup action plan issued by the department (or a
				record of decision prepared under the federal cleanup law) meeting the
				requirements of WAC
				173-340-380;
. Cleanup action plans developed by the owner or operator of a
				MSWLF unit in accordance with the procedures in WAC
				173-340-350 through
				173-340-390 for independent
				remedial actions; and
. Plans developed for interim actions conducted under WAC
				173-340-430.
"Closure" means those actions taken by the owner or operator of
				a MSWLF unit or facility to cease disposal operations and to ensure that a
				MSWLF unit or facility is closed in conformance with applicable regulations at
				the time of such closures and to prepare the site for the post-closure period.
				Closure is considered part of operation. See definition of operation.
"Commercial solid waste" means all types of solid waste
				generated by stores, offices, restaurants, warehouses, and other
				nonmanufacturing activities, excluding residential and industrial
				wastes.
"Composite layer." See WAC
				173-351-500(1)(a)(i)(B).
"Composite liner." See WAC
				173-351-300(3).
"Construction quality assurance" means a planned system of
				activities that provide assurance that a facility is constructed as specified
				in the design and that the materials used in construction are manufactured
				according to specifications. Construction quality assurance includes
				inspections, verifications, audits, and evaluations of materials and
				workmanship necessary to determine and document the quality of the constructed
				facility.
"Construction quality control" means a planned system of
				activities that is used to directly monitor and control the quality of a
				construction project. Construction quality controls are the measures under
				taken by the contractor or installer to determine compliance with requirements
				for workmanship and materials put forth in the plans and specification for the
				construction project.
"Contaminant" means any chemical, physical, biological, or
				radiological substance that does not occur naturally in the environment or that
				occurs at concentrations greater than natural background levels.
"Contaminated" or "contamination" means the alteration of the
				physical, chemical, biological, or radiological properties of soil or waters of
				the state such that the soil or water could pose a threat to human health or
				the environment or the alteration is a violation of any applicable
				environmental regulation.
"Demonstration" means a showing by the owner or operator that
				human health and the environment can be protected as equally as a given
				requirement in the regulation. A demonstration is made in the application for a
				permit under WAC
				173-351-700 or through the permit
				modification process of WAC
				173-351-720(6).
				A successful demonstration allows or authorizes an activity authorized for the
				life of the facility unless an alternative time period is approved by the
				jurisdictional health department.
"Department" means the department of ecology.
"Disease vectors" means any rodents, flies, mosquitoes, or
				other animals, including insects, capable of transmitting disease to humans.
				See WAC 173-351-200(3)(b).
"Displacement" means the relative movement of any two sides of
				a fault measured in any direction. See WAC
				173-351-130(5)(b)(ii).
"Disposal" or "deposition" means the discharge, deposit,
				injection, dumping, leaking, or placing of any solid waste into or on any land
				or water.
"Establish" means to construct a new or laterally expanded
				MSWLF unit.
"Existing MSWLF unit" means any municipal solid waste landfill
				unit that is receiving solid waste as of the appropriate dates specified in WAC
				173-351-010(3)(a).
				Waste placement in existing units must be consistent with past operating
				practices or modified practices to ensure good waste management practices,
				including operating plans approved under chapter 173-304 WAC.
"Fault" means a fracture or a zone of fractures in any material
				along which strata on one side have been displaced with respect to that on the
				other side. See WAC
				173-351-130(5)(b)(i).
"Facility" means all contiguous land and structures, other
				appurtenances, and improvements on the land used for the disposal of solid
				waste.
"Flood plain" means the lowland and relatively flat areas
				adjoining inland and coastal waters, including flood-prone areas of offshore
				islands, that are inundated by the 100-year flood. See WAC
				173-351-130(3)(b)(i).
"Free liquids" means any portion of material passing through
				and dropping from a filter as determined by Method 9095B (Paint Filter Liquids
				Test), in "Test Methods for Evaluating Solid Wastes, Physical/Chemical
				Methods," SW-846. See WAC
				173-351-200(9).
"Gas condensate" means the liquid generated as a result of gas
				recovery processes at the MSWLF unit. See WAC
				173-351-200(9)(c)(ii).
"Groundwater" means water below the land surface in a zone of
				saturation.
"Holocene" means the most recent epoch of the Quaternary
				period, extending from the end of the Pleistocene Epoch to the present. See WAC
				173-351-130(5)(b)(iii).
"Household waste" means any solid waste (including garbage,
				trash, and sanitary waste in septic tanks) derived from households (including
				household hazardous waste) (including single and multiple residences, hotels
				and motels, bunkhouses, ranger stations, crew quarters, campgrounds, picnic
				grounds, and day-use recreation areas). This term does not include commercial,
				industrial, inert and demolition waste, or wood waste.
Note:
Sanitary waste in septic tanks that is not disposed
							 of in a MSWLF unit is subject to other state and federal rules.
"Hydrostratigraphic unit" means any water-bearing geologic unit
				or units hydraulically connected or grouped together on the basis of similar
				hydraulic conductivity which can be reasonably monitored; several geologic
				formations or part of a geologic formation may be grouped into a single
				hydrostratigraphic unit; perched sand lenses may be considered a
				hydrostratigraphic unit or part of a hydrostratigraphic unit, for
				example.
Note:
'Hydraulically connected' denotes water-bearing units
							 which can transmit water to other transmissive units.
"Inert waste" means solid waste identified as inert waste in
				chapter 173-350 WAC, Solid waste handling standards.
"Industrial solid wastes" means solid waste or waste
				by-products generated by manufacturing or industrial processes such as scraps,
				trimmings, packing, pallets, and other discarded materials not otherwise
				designated as dangerous waste under chapter 173-303 WAC, the Dangerous waste
				regulations. This term does not include commercial, inert, demolition,
				construction, woodwaste, mining waste, or oil and gas waste but does include
				lunch room, office, or other similar waste generated by employees at the
				industrial facility.
"Jurisdictional health department" means city, county,
				city-county, or district public health department as defined in
				chapters
				70.05,
				70.08, and
				70.46 RCW.
"Landfill." See "Facility."
"Lateral expansion" means a horizontal expansion of the waste
				boundaries of an existing MSWLF unit that is not an existing horizontal
				expansion. (See also definition of "existing MSWLF unit.")
"Leachate" means a liquid that has passed through or emerged
				from solid waste and contains soluble, suspended, or miscible materials removed
				from such waste.
"Lithified earth material" means all rock, including all
				naturally occurring and naturally formed aggregates or masses of minerals or
				small particles of older rock that formed by crystallization of magma or by
				induration of loose sediments. This term does not include man-made materials,
				such as fill, concrete, and asphalt, or unconsolidated earth materials, soil,
				or regolith lying at or near the earth surface. See WAC
				173-351-200(6)(b)(iii).
"Liquid waste" means any waste material that is determined to
				contain "free liquids" as defined by Method 9095B (Paint Filter Liquids Test),
				as described in "Test Methods for Evaluating Solid Wastes, Physical/Chemical
				Methods," SW-846. See WAC
				173-351-200(9)(c)(i).
"Lower explosive limit" means the lowest percent by volume of a
				mixture of explosive gases in air that will propagate a flame at twenty-five
				degrees C and atmospheric pressure. See WAC
				173-351-200(4)(d).
"Maximum horizontal acceleration in lithified earth material"
				means the maximum expected horizontal acceleration depicted on a seismic hazard
				map, with a ninety percent or greater probability that the acceleration will
				not be exceeded in two hundred fifty years, or the maximum expected horizontal
				acceleration based on a site-specific seismic risk assessment. See WAC
				173-351-200(6)(b)(ii).
"Modification" means a substantial change in the design or
				operational plans including removal of a design element of a MSWLF unit
				previously set forth in a permit application or a disposal or processing
				activity that is not approved in the permit. To be considered a substantial
				change, a modification must be reasonably related to a specific requirement of
				this rule. A substantial change includes any change in the design, operation,
				closure, post-closure, financial assurance, environmental monitoring or other
				aspect of an MSWLF unit that is reasonably related to a specific requirement of
				this rule and was not previously set forth in a permit application or approved
				in the permit. Lateral expansions, a fifty percent increase or greater in
				design volume capacity or changes resulting in significant adverse
				environmental impacts that have led a responsible official to issue a
				declaration of significance under WAC
				197-11-736 are not considered a
				modification but require permit reissuance under these rules.
"Municipal sewage sludge" means a semisolid substance
				consisting of settled sewage solids combined with varying amounts of water and
				dissolved materials generated from a publicly owned wastewater treatment plant.
				For the purposes of this rule sewage sludge generated from publicly owned
				leachate waste treatment works that receive sewage from on-site sanitary
				facilities are not municipal sewage sludge.
"Municipal solid waste landfill unit (MSWLF unit)" means a
				discrete area of land or an excavation that receives household waste, and that
				is not a land application site, surface impoundment, injection well, or pile,
				as those terms are defined under chapter 173-350 WAC, Solid waste handling
				standards or chapter 173-218 WAC, Underground injection control program. A
				MSWLF unit also may receive other types of RCRA subtitle D wastes, such as
				commercial solid waste, nonhazardous sludge, conditionally-exempt small
				quantity generator waste, and industrial solid waste. Such a landfill may be
				publicly or privately owned. A MSWLF unit may be a new MSWLF unit, an existing
				MSWLF unit, or a lateral expansion.
"Natural background" means the concentration of chemical,
				physical, biological, or radiological substances consistently present in the
				environment that has not been influenced by regional or localized human
				activities. Metals at concentrations naturally occurring in bedrock, sediments
				and soils due solely to the geologic processes that formed the materials are
				natural background. In addition, low concentrations of other persistent
				substances due solely to the global use or formation of these substances are
				natural background.
"New MSWLF unit" means any municipal solid waste landfill unit
				that has not received waste prior to November 26, 1993.
"Nuisance" means unlawfully doing an act, or omitting to
				perform a duty, which act or omission either annoys, injures, or endangers the
				comfort, repose, health or safety of others, offends decency, or unlawfully
				interferes with, obstructs or tends to obstruct, any lake or navigable river,
				bay, stream, canal, or basin, or any public park, square, street or highway; or
				in any way renders other persons insecure in life, or in the use of
				property.
"100-year flood" or "base flood" means a flood that has a one
				percent or less chance of recurring in any given year or a flood of a magnitude
				equaled or exceeded once in one hundred years on the average over a
				significantly long period. See WAC
				173-351-130(3)(b)(ii).
"Open burning" means the combustion of solid waste
				without:
Control of combustion air to maintain adequate temperature for
				efficient combustion;
Containment of the combustion reaction in an enclosed device so
				as to provide sufficient residence time and mixing for complete combustion;
				and
Control of the emission of the combustion products.
"Operator" means the person(s) responsible for the overall
				operation of a facility or part of a facility.
"Operation" means those actions taken by an owner or operator
				of a facility or MSWLF unit beginning with waste acceptance at a facility or
				MSWLF unit up to and including closure of the facility or MSWLF unit.
"Owner" means the person(s) who owns a facility or part of a
				facility.
"Point of compliance." See WAC
				173-351-300(6).
"Poor foundation conditions" means those areas where features
				exist which indicate that a natural or man-induced event may result in
				inadequate foundation support for the structural components of a MSWLF unit.
				See WAC 173-351-130(7)(b)(ii).
"Post-closure" means those actions taken by an owner or
				operator of a facility or MSWLF unit after closure.
"Purchase" means execution of a long term lease, securing of
				options to purchase or execution of agreements to purchase.
"Random inspection." See WAC
				173-351-200(1)(b)(ii).
"Regulated dangerous waste" means a solid waste that is a
				dangerous waste as defined in WAC
				173-303-040 that is not excluded
				from regulation as a dangerous waste under WAC
				173-303-071 or
				173-303-073, or was not generated
				by an exempted small quantity generator as defined in WAC
				173-303-070. See WAC
				173-351-200(1)(b)(i).
"Runoff" means any rainwater, leachate, or other liquid that
				drains over land from any part of a facility.
"Run-on" means any rainwater, leachate, or other liquid that
				drains over land onto any part of a facility.
"Saturated zone" means that part of the earth's crust in which
				all voids are filled with water.
"Scavenging" means the removal of materials at a disposal
				facility, or intermediate solid waste-handling facility, without the approval
				of the owner or operator and the jurisdictional health department.
"Seismic impact zone" means an area with a ten percent or
				greater probability that the maximum horizontal acceleration in lithified earth
				material, expressed as a percentage of the earth's gravitational pull, will
				exceed 0.10g in two hundred fifty years. See WAC
				173-351-130(6)(b)(i).
"Sewage sludge" means a semisolid substance consisting of
				settled sewage solids combined with varying amounts of water and dissolved
				materials generated from a wastewater treatment system, that does not meet the
				requirements of chapter 70.95J RCW.
"Sludge" means any solid, semisolid, or liquid waste generated
				from a municipal, commercial, or industrial wastewater treatment plant, water
				supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility exclusive of the
				treated effluent from a wastewater treatment plant.
"Sole source aquifer" means an aquifer designated by the
				Environmental Protection Agency pursuant to Section 1424e of the Safe Drinking
				Water Act ( PL 93-523). See WAC
				173-351-140(1)(b)(vii).
"Solid waste" means all putrescible and nonputrescible solid
				and semisolid wastes including, but not limited to garbage, rubbish, ashes,
				industrial wastes, commercial waste, swill, sewage sludge, demolition and
				construction wastes, abandoned vehicles or parts thereof, discarded commodities
				and recyclable materials.
"Structural components" means liners, leachate collection
				systems, final covers, run-on/runoff systems, and any other component used in
				the construction and operation of the MSWLF that is necessary for protection of
				human health and the environment. See WAC
				173-351-130(7)(b)(ii).
"Unstable area" means a location that is susceptible to natural
				or human-induced events or forces capable of impairing the integrity of some or
				all of the landfill structural components responsible for preventing releases
				from a landfill. Unstable areas can include poor foundation conditions, and
				areas susceptible to mass movements. See WAC
				173-351-130(7)(b)(i).
"Vadose zone" means that portion of a geologic formation in
				which soil pores contain some water, the pressure of that water is less than
				atmospheric, and the formation occurs above the zone of saturation.
"Vulnerability" means the propensity or likelihood of a sole
				source aquifer to become contaminated should the integrity of the engineering
				control (including liners) fail; it is a measure of the propensity to
				deteriorate the water quality of a sole source aquifer, and takes into account
				an assessment of the physical barriers, the physical movement of contaminants,
				the hydraulic properties of the subsurface lithology; the rate of a contaminant
				plume movement; the physical and chemical characteristics of contaminants; and
				it also includes an assessment of the likelihood and ease for contaminant
				removal or cleanup, or the arrest of contamination, so as to not impact any
				further portion of the designated sole source aquifer. See WAC
				173-351-140(1)(b).
"Waste management unit" means a MSWLF unit.
"Waste management unit boundary" means a vertical surface
				located at the hydraulically down gradient limit of the unit. This vertical
				surface extends down into the hydrostratigraphic unit(s) identified in the
				hydrogeologic report.
"Waters of the state" means lakes, rivers, ponds, streams,
				inland waters, underground waters, salt water, and all other surface waters and
				watercourses within the jurisdiction of the state of Washington.
"Wetlands" means those areas that are defined in
				40 C.F.R.
				232.2(r): Areas that are
				inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration
				sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a
				prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil
				conditions. Wetlands include, but are not limited to, swamps, marshes, bogs,
				and similar areas. See WAC
				173-351-130(4)(b).
Statutory Authority:
				  RCW
				  70.95.020(3),
				  70.95.060(1), and
				  70.95.260(1),
				  (6). 12-23-009 (Order 07-15), §
				  173-351-100, filed 11/8/12, effective 12/9/12. Statutory Authority:
				  Chapter
				  70.95 RCW and  40 CFR 258 .
				  93-22-016, § 173-351-100, filed 10/26/93, effective
				  11/26/93.