Fort Worth City Code § 12.5-300 DEFINITIONS.
§ 12.5-300 DEFINITIONS.
Unless a provision explicitly states otherwise, the following terms and phrases, as used in this article, shall have the meanings hereinafter designated.
AGRICULTURAL STORMWATER RUNOFF. Any stormwater runoff from orchards, cultivated crops, pastures, range lands and other non-point source agricultural activities, but not discharges from concentrated animal feeding operations as defined in 40 C.F.R. § 122.23 or discharges from concentrated aquatic animal production facilities as defined in 40 C.F.R. § 122.24.
AQUATIC MONITORING ORGANISM. The Fathead minnow Pimephales promelas, the bacterium Vibrio ficheri or the daphnid Ceriodaphnia dubia.
BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES (BMP). Schedules of activities, prohibitions of practices, maintenance procedures and other management practices to prevent or reduce the pollution of the MS4 and waters of the United States. BMPs also include treatment requirements, operating procedures and practices to control plant site runoff, spillage or leaks, sludge or waste disposal, or drainage from raw material storage.
CELLAR DIRT. Construction site waste materials, such as natural rock and soil overburden.
C.F.R. The Code of Federal Regulations.
CITY. The City of Fort Worth, Texas.
CONTAMINATED. Containing a harmful quantity of any substance.
CONTAMINATION. The presence of or entry into a public water supply system, the MS4, waters of the state or waters of the United States of any substance which may be deleterious to the public health and/or the quality of the water.
COSMETIC CLEANING. Cleaning done for cosmetic purposes. It does not include industrial cleaning, cleaning associated with manufacturing activities, hazardous or toxic waste cleaning, or any cleaning otherwise regulated under federal, state or local laws.
DIRECTOR. The director of the department of environmental management or the director’s authorized representatives.
DISCHARGE. Any addition or introduction of any pollutant, stormwater or any other substance whatsoever into the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) or into waters of the United States.
DISCHARGER. Any person who causes, allows, permits or is otherwise responsible for, a discharge, including, without limitation, any operator of a construction-site or industrial facility.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY or EPA. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, or any duly authorized official of said agency.
FACILITY. As used in Division 3 of this article, means any facility, including construction sites, required by the Federal Clean Water Act, being 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251 et seq., to have a permit to discharge stormwater associated with industrial activity.
FIRE CODE. The fire prevention and protection chapter of the city code.
FIRE DEPARTMENT. The fire department of the City of Fort Worth, or any duly authorized representative thereof.
FIRE PROTECTION WATER. Any water, and any substances or materials contained therein, used by any person other than the fire department to control or extinguish a fire.
HARMFUL QUANTITY. The amount of any substance that will cause pollution of waters in the state, waters of the United States, or that will cause lethal or sub-lethal adverse effects on representative, sensitive aquatic monitoring organisms belonging to the city, upon their exposure to samples of any discharge into waters in the state, waters of the United States or the MS4.
MOBILE COMMERCIAL COSMETIC CLEANING. Power washing, steam cleaning and any other mobile cosmetic cleaning operation, of vehicles and/or exterior surfaces, engaged in for commercial purposes.
MUNICIPAL SEPARATE STORM SEWER SYSTEM (MS4). The system of conveyances (including sidewalks, roads with drainage systems, municipal streets, catch basins, curbs, gutters, ditches, human-made channels or storm drains) owned and operated by the city and designed or used for collecting or conveying stormwater, and which is not used for collecting or conveying sewage.
NATIONAL POLLUTANT DISCHARGE ELIMINATION SYSTEM. The national program for issuing, modifying, revoking and reissuing, terminating, monitoring and enforcing permits, and imposing and enforcing pretreatment requirements, under §§ 307, 402, 318 and 405 of the Federal Clean Water Act.
NOI. Notice of intent.
NON-POINT SOURCE. Any source of any discharge of a pollutant that is not a “point source.”
NOTICE OF INTENT. The notice of intent that is required by the NPDES stormwater multi-sector general permit, the EPA Region 6 NPDES stormwater construction general permit, or any similar general permit to discharge stormwater associated with industrial activity that is issued by the EPA or the TNRCC.
NPDES. The national pollutant discharge elimination system.
NPDES PERMIT. A permit issued by EPA (or by the state under authority delegated pursuant to 33 U.S.C. § 1342(b)) that authorizes the discharge of pollutants to waters of the United States, whether the permit is applicable on an individual, group or general area-wide basis.
OPERATE. Drive, conduct, work, run, manage or control.
OPERATOR. As used in Division 3 of this article, means the party or parties that either individually or taken together meet the following two criteria:
(1) They have operational control over the site specifications (including the ability to make modifications in specifications); and
(2) They have the day-to-day operational control of those activities at the site necessary to ensure compliance with SWPPP requirements and any permit conditions.
PERSON. Any individual, partnership, co-partnership, firm, company, corporation, association, joint stock company, trust, estate, governmental entity or any other legal entity; or their legal representatives, agents or assigns. This definition includes all federal, state and local governmental entities.
pH. The logarithm to the base 10 of the reciprocal of the concentration in grams per liter of hydrogen ions; a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a solution, expressed in standard units.
POINT SOURCE. Any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, including but not limited to, any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, landfill leachate collection system, vessel or other floating craft from which pollutants are or may be discharged. This term does not include return flows from irrigated agriculture or agricultural stormwater runoff.
POLLUTANT. Dredged spoil; solid waste; incinerator residue; sewage; garbage; sewage sludge; filter backwash; munitions; chemical wastes; biological materials; toxic materials; radioactive materials; heat; wrecked or discarded equipment; rock; sand; cellar dirt; and industrial, municipal, recreational and agricultural waste discharged into water or into the municipal separate storm sewer system.
POLLUTION. The alteration of the physical, thermal, chemical or biological quality of, or the contamination of, any water of the state or water of the United States, that renders the water harmful, detrimental, or injurious to humans, animal life, vegetation or property, or to the public health, safety or welfare, or impairs the usefulness or the public enjoyment of the water for any lawful or reasonable purpose.
RELEASE. Any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping or disposing into ground-water, subsurface soils, surface soils, the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4), the water of the state, the waters of the United States.
STATE. The State of Texas.
STORMWATER. Any flow occurring during or following any form of natural precipitation, and resulting from such precipitation, including snow melt.
STORMWATER DISCHARGE ASSOCIATED WITH INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY. The discharge from any conveyance which is used for collecting and conveying stormwater and which is directly related to manufacturing, processing or raw materials storage areas at an industrial plant. The term does not include discharges from facilities or activities excluded from the NPDES program under 40 C.F.R. Part 122. For the categories of industries identified in subsections (1) through (10) of this definition, the term includes, but is not limited to, stormwater discharges from industrial plant yards; immediate access roads and rail lines used or traveled by carriers of raw materials, manufactured products, waste material or by-products used or created by the facility; material handling sites; refuse sites; sites used for the application or disposal of process wastewaters (as defined at 40 C.F.R. Part 401); sites used for the storage and maintenance of material handling equipment; sites used for residual treatment, storage or disposal; shipping and receiving areas; manufacturing buildings; storage areas (including tank farms) for raw materials, and intermediate and finished products; and areas where industrial activity has taken place in the past and significant materials remain and are exposed to stormwater. For the categories of industries identified in subsection (11) of this definition, the term includes only stormwater discharges from all the areas (except access roads and rail lines) that are listed in the previous sentence where material handling equipment or activities, raw materials, intermediate products, final products, waste materials, by-products or industrial machinery are exposed to stormwater. For the purposes of this definition, material handling activities include the storage, loading and unloading, transportation, or conveyance of any raw material, intermediate product, finished product, by-product or waste product. The term excludes areas located on plant lands separate from the plant’s industrial activities, such as office buildings and accompanying parking lots as long as the drainage from the excluded areas is not mixed with stormwater drained from the above described areas. Industrial facilities (including industrial facilities that are federally, state or municipally owned or operated that meet the description of the facilities listed in this subsections (1) through (10) of this definition) include those facilities designated under the provisions of 40 C.F.R. § 122.26(a)(1)(v). The following categories of facilities are considered to be engaging in “industrial activity”:
(1) Facilities subject to stormwater effluent limitations guidelines, new source performance standards, or toxic pollutant effluent standards under 40 C.F.R. Subchapter N (except facilities with toxic pollutant effluent standards which are exempted under category (11) of this definition);
(2) Facilities classified as Standard Industrial Classifications 24 (except 2434), 26 (except 265 and 267), 28 (except 283), 29, 311, 32 (except 323), 33, 3441, 373;
(3) Facilities classified as Standard Industrial Classifications 10 through 14 (mineral industry) including active or inactive mining operations (except for areas of coal mining operations no longer meeting the definition of a reclamation area under 40 C.F.R. § 434.11(1) because the performance bond issued to the facility by the appropriate Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) authority has been released, or except for areas of non-coal mining operations which have been released from applicable state or federal reclamation requirements after December 17, 1990) and oil and gas exploration, production, processing or treatment operations, or transmission facilities that discharge stormwater contaminated by contact with or that has come into contact with, any overburden, raw material, intermediate products, finished products, byproducts or waste products located on the site of such operations; (inactive mining operations are mining sites that are not being actively mined, but which have an identifiable owner/operator; inactive mining sites do not include sites where mining claims are being maintained prior to disturbances associated with the extraction, beneficiation or processing of mined materials, nor sites where minimal activities are undertaken for the sole purpose of maintaining a mining claim);
(4) Hazardous waste treatment, storage or disposal facilities, including those that are operating under interim status or a permit under subtitle C of the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA);
(5) Landfills, land application sites and open dumps that receive or have received any industrial wastes (waste that is received from any of the facilities described under this definition) including those that are subject to regulation under subtitle D of RCRA;
(6) Facilities involved in the recycling of materials, including metal scrapyards, battery reclaimers, salvage yards and automobile junkyards, including but limited to those classified as Standard Industrial Classification 5015 and 5093;
(7) Steam electric power generating facilities, including coal handling sites;
(8) Transportation facilities classified as Standard Industrial Classifications 40, 41, 42 (except 4221-25), 43, 44, 45 and 5171 which have vehicle maintenance shops, equipment cleaning operations, or airport deicing operations. Only those portions of the facility that are either involved in vehicle maintenance (including vehicle rehabilitation, mechanical repairs, painting, fueling and lubrication), equipment cleaning operations, airport deicing operations or which are otherwise identified under subsections (1) through (7) or (9) through (11) of this definition are associated with industrial activity;
(9) Treatment works treating domestic sewage or any other sewage sludge or wastewater treatment device or system, used in the storage treatment, recycling and reclamation of municipal or domestic sewage, including land dedicated to the disposal of sewage sludge that are located within the confines of the facility, with a design flow of 1.0 mgd or more, or required to have an approved pretreatment program under 40 C.F.R. Part 403. Not included are farm lands, domestic gardens or lands used for sludge management where sludge is beneficially reused and which are not physically located in the confines of the facility, or areas that are in compliance with § 405 of the Federal Clean Water Act;
(10) Construction activity including clearing, grading and excavation activities except: operations that result in the disturbance of less than five acres of total land area which are not part of a larger common plan of development or sale; and
(11) Facilities under Standard Industrial Classifications 20, 21, 22, 23, 2434, 25, 265, 267, 27, 283, 285, 30, 31 (except 311), 323, 34 (except 3441), 35, 36, 37 (except 373), 38, 39, 4221-25, (and which are not otherwise included within subsections (2) through (10) of this definition).
STORMWATER POLLUTION PREVENTION PLAN. A plan required by a permit to discharge stormwater associated with industrial activity, including construction, and which describes and ensures the implementation of practices that are to be used to reduce the pollutants in stormwater discharges associated with industrial activity at the facility.
SWPPP. Stormwater pollution prevention plan.
TAC. The Texas Administrative Code.
TEXAS POLLUTANT DISCHARGE ELIMINATION SYSTEM. The program delegated to the State of Texas by the EPA pursuant to 33 U.S.C. § 1342(b).
TPDES. The Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.
TSS (TOTAL SUSPENDED SOLIDS). Solids that either float on the surface, or are in suspension in, water, wastewater or other liquids, and which are generally removable by a laboratory filtration device. TSS is expressed in milligrams per liter.
UNCONTAMINATED. Not containing a harmful quantity of any substance.
U.S.C. The United States Code.
WASTEWATER. Any water or other liquid, other than uncontaminated stormwater, discharged from a facility.
WATER IN THE STATE. Groundwater, percolating or otherwise, lakes, bays, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, rivers, streams, creeks, wetlands, marshes, inlets, canals inside the territorial limits of the state, and all other bodies of surface water, natural or artificial, navigable or non-navigable, and including the bed and banks of all watercourses and bodies of surface water that are wholly or partially inside or bordering the state or inside the jurisdiction of the state.
WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES. All waters which are currently used, were used in the past, or may be susceptible to use in interstate or foreign commerce; all interstate waters, including interstate wetlands; all other waters the use, degradation or destruction of which would affect or could affect interstate or foreign commerce; all impoundments of waters otherwise defined as waters of the United States under this definition; all tributaries of waters identified in this definition; all wetlands adjacent to waters identified in this definition; and any waters within the federal definition of WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES at 40 C.F.R. § 122.2; but not including any waste treatment systems, treatment ponds or lagoons designed to meet the requirements of the Federal Clean Water Act.
WETLAND. An area that is inundated or saturated by surface or ground-water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances does support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. WETLANDS generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas.
(Ord. 12274, § 1, passed 11-28-1995; Ord. 13808, § 1, passed 5-18-1999)