§ 110-106. Definitions.

The following words, terms and phrases, when used in this article, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning, these definitions also apply to rules and regulations, agreements and contracts:

Application means the written instrument by which a developer or a customer applies for sewer service of any sort.

Approving authority means the board of county commissioners or its designated representative.

Board of review means the members of the board of county commissioners or its designated committee.

BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure in five days at 20 degrees Celsius, expressed in milligrams per liter.

c means Celsius.

COD (chemical oxygen demand) means a measure of the oxygen-consuming capacity of inorganic and organic matter present in water or wastewater under standard laboratory procedures, expressed in milligrams per liter.

Connection charge means the charge established by the county for making the actual physical connection to the sewage disposal system.

Construction connection charge means a charge, payable to the county, for a developer's utilization of oversized facilities paid for by other parties, including the county.

Construction cost means the cost to a developer, less the county's oversizing costs, if any, described in this article, for the design and construction of all facilities as required to serve the developer's property and to connect to the county's sanitary sewer system.

Consulting engineer means the engineer or engineering firm or corporation responsible for professional engineering services provided for an assignment.

Control manhole means a structure that is accessible for the purpose of maintaining a building sewer. A control manhole may be used as an inspection chamber.

Cooling water means the water discharge from any system of condensation, air conditioning, cooling, refrigeration or other sources. It shall contain no polluting substances which would produce BOD or SS each in excess of ten parts per million by weight or toxic substances as limited in this Code or other polluting substances which may be limited in this article.

Customer or consumer means any person furnished sewage disposal service by the county. Retail customers shall refer to the owner of the property served.

Developer means any person developing a property for resale, rental or lease, at or to which sewage disposal service is to be rendered by the county, and who shall have the legal right to negotiate for such service; where applicable, any person applying for the extension of sewers or force mains in order to serve a certain property.

Director means the public works and utilities director of the county.

Domestic sewage or sanitary sewage means sewage derived principally from dwellings, business buildings, industries, institutions and the like originating as wastes from kitchens, water closets, lavatories, bathrooms and showers.

Domestic user means any user of sewage treatment facilities not classified as an industrial user.

Effluent means sewage, water or other liquid, after some degree of treatment, flowing out of any treatment device or facilities.

Force main means a pressure sewer pipeline for the transmission of sewage. Such pipe cannot receive sewage, except under pressure by pumping.

Frontage means the actual width, normally expressed in feet, of a property in respect to a street or avenue but without relation to the front, side or rear of any structure located on the property along which the proposed sewer or force main is installed. For a corner lot, frontage is calculated as the longer of the sides involved. For irregular shaped lots or acreage, frontage will be calculated by taking the square root of the number of square feet of property involved.

Garbage means solid wastes from the domestic and commercial preparation, cooking and dispensing of food and from the handling, storage and sale of produce.

Grease or fat means any material which is extractable from an acidified sample of a waste by hexane or other designated solvent.

Ground garbage means solid wastes from the preparation, cooking and dispensing of food that has been shredded or comminuted to such a degree that all particles will be carried freely in suspension in public sewers, with no particle greater than one-half inch in any dimension.

Guarantee deposit means the amount placed with the county by each customer as security for payment of the sewer bill.

Hauler means any person engaged in transportation or conveyance of liquid wastes to a sewage treatment plant for disposal.

Impact fee means a charge for the proposed usage of the county's facilities, based on the average daily sewage flow in gallons per day, paid by a developer or a customer for utilizing portions of the county's sanitary sewer system held in a special fund to be utilized in accordance with regulations adopted by the county establishing such fees.

Industrial cost recovery means recovery by the grantee of the grant amount allocatable to the treatment or transmission of wastes from industrial users of a treatment works.

Industrial user means any user of the publicly owned treatment works identified in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, as amended and supplemented, including but not limited to the following divisions:

(1)

Division A: agriculture, forestry and fishing.

(2)

Division B: mining.

(3)

Division D: manufacturing.

(4)

Division E: transportation, communications, electric, gas and sanitary service.

(5)

Division I: services.

A user in the division listed may be excluded if it is determined that it will introduce primarily segregated domestic waste or wastes from sanitary conveniences.

Industrial waste means any liquid, solid or gaseous substance of form or energy or combination thereof resulting from any process of industrial, commercial, governmental and institutional concerns, manufacturing, business, trade or research, including the development, recovery or processing of natural resources, or from sources identified in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, as amended.

Influent means sewage, raw or partly treated, flowing into any sewage treatment device, pumping station or related facilities.

Inspection chamber means an accessible structure through which sewage from a building sewer flows and from which samples of sewage may be collected for the purpose of being tested.

Interceptor means a large-size gravity flow sewer main for the transmission of sewage, which has been designed to receive sewage from one or more collecting sewers or pumping stations.

Laboratory determination means the measurements, tests and analyses of the characteristics of waters and wastes in accordance with 40 CFR 136 pertaining to guidelines establishing test procedures for the analysis of pollutants. These methods are contained in the latest edition of three publications:

(1)

Standard Methods of Examination of Water and Wastewater, a joint publication of the American Public Health Association, the American Water Works Association and the Water Pollution Control Federation;

(2)

ASTM, which means Annual Book of Standards, Part 23, Water Atmospheric Analysis, 1972, a publication of the American Society for Testing Materials; and

(3)

EPA Methods, which means Methods for Chemical Analysis of Water and Wastes, a publication of the Environmental Protection Agency;

or in accordance with any other equivalent methods prescribed by the director.

Lateral sewer line means a branch sewer line connected to the main sewer line. A lateral sewer is normally eight inches in size or larger.

Main sewer line means the major gravity sewer line in any specific development to which one or more lateral sewers may be tributary.

Meter measurement means the act of or result of determining the quantity of water supplied or being discharged by a user and determined by an instrument or device used for such measurements and approved by the director.

Municipality means any city, town or village wholly or partly within the county.

Off-site sewers means sewer lines totally outside a development.

On-site sewers means sewer lines in streets or rights-of-way or easements totally within a development and those sewer collection lines in peripheral streets constructed for use by that development.

Operation and maintenance means the process and act of keeping all facilities for collecting, pumping, treating and disposing of sewage in normal operation and in a good state of repair, including the replacement of the facilities when necessary and including any lines for reuse of effluent.

Oversized sewer means a sewer extension in, through or past a development which, because of future extensions or other reasons, is larger than required for the immediate development to be served.

pH means the logarithm of the reciprocal of the hydrogen ion concentration in grams per liter of solution.

Planned extension means future sewer extensions scheduled by the county with special provisions for payments therefor.

Plumbing means all pipes, fittings and appurtenances on the property owner's side of the property line or outside easement areas. This includes the property owner's extension from the sewer lateral up to and including the house plumbing.

ppm means parts per million by weight or milligrams per liter.

Pretreatment facilities means structures, devices or equipment for the purpose of removing deleterious wastes from sewage generated from a premises prior to its discharge into a public sewer.

Private sewer means any sewer or system or sewers, exclusive of building sewers, which is not owned by the municipality in which it is located or any other public authority or private utility.

Reuse means utilization by a developer or other customer of sufficiently treated effluent for lawn, landscaping or golf course irrigation or for surface water or groundwater recharge.

Sampling means the periodic collection of sewage for testing.

Scavenger waste means any liquid waste from sources such as septic tanks, package plants or industrial processes which are removed from a premises by means other than a sewer.

Service area means those unincorporated areas of the county designated by separate resolution of the board of county commissioners which are serviced by a regional or subregional wastewater treatment facility owned or operated, in whole or in part, by the county, where development is required to connect to the regional or subregional facility, unless otherwise provided in this article or within the designating resolution.

Service commitment means the county's intent to provide service to a particular development or facility as expressed by the county's approval on a permit request to the state department of environmental protection.

Service commitment fee means that fee established by the county for providing service commitments to developers in accordance with this article.

Service lateral means a sewer connection extending from the point of connection to the collecting sewer in the street or easement to a customer's plumbing.

Sewage means a combination of the water-carried wastes from residences, business buildings, institutions and industrial establishments, together with such infiltration as may be present; often referred to as wastewater.

Sewage disposal plant means the physical facilities for the treatment of sewage before discharge into a percolation pond, stream, spray irrigation system, canal, ocean, lake or injection well.

Sewage disposal service means the service provided by the county for the disposal of sewage, including transmission, treatment and effluent disposal.

Sewage disposal service charge or sewer charge means the charge established for the disposal of sewage, based upon volume discharged to the sewer, or water consumption.

Sewage disposal system means all facilities required to transport sewage to a treatment plant for treatment and effluent disposal, including gravity sanitary sewers, interceptors, force mains, pumping stations, treatment plants, outfalls, disposal wells and any land application facilities.

Sewage flow meter means a device that measures and records the flow of sewage. It may also measure the rate of flow.

Sewer or collection sewer means the gravity flow sloping pipe facility installed in public streets, rights-of-way and easements for the collection of sewage.

Sewer system of the city means the sanitary sewer collection system within the corporate limits of a city that is operated by or on behalf of the county.

Slug means any discharge of water, sewage or industrial waste which in concentration of any given constituent or in quantity of flow exceeds for any period of duration longer than 15 minutes more than five times the average 24-hour concentration of flows during normal operation.

Surcharge means that part of the sewer service charge which shall be applied to extra strength wastes to cover added operation and maintenance costs.

Suspended solids means solids that are in suspension in water, sewage or other liquids and which are removable by laboratory filtering.

System means the entire sewer system of the county and all treatment and disposal facilities and interceptor sewers owned or operated by the county and all sewage collection systems connected thereto.

Testing means the analysis of samples of sewage.

Toxic substance means any substance, whether gaseous, liquid or solid, which when discharged to the sewer system in sufficient quantities may tend to interfere with any sewage treatment process or to constitute a hazard to human beings or animals or inhibit aquatic life or create a hazard to recreation in the receiving water of the effluent from the sewage treatment plant.

Unpolluted water means water discharged in its original state or water discharged which, after use for any purpose, is at least equal chemically, physically and biologically to the water from its original source, i.e., potable water, groundwater, river water and stream water.

User means any person or premises receiving waste disposal services.

User charge means charges assigned to each user which defray a proportionate share of the cost of operation and maintenance of the sewer system; often referred to as sewage disposal service charge.

Wastewater means a term interchangeable with sewage as defined in this section.

(Code 1970, § 26-82; Ord. No. 87-10, § 2, 3-24-87)

Cross reference

Definitions generally, § 1-2.