Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 9, March 1, 2024
RELATES TO: KRS 151.100-151.600, 151.700-151.730, 151.990,
223.400-223.460, 224.70, 224.73
NECESSITY, FUNCTION, AND CONFORMITY: KRS 151.700 through
151.730 authorize the Kentucky River Authority to manage the surface water and
groundwater of the Kentucky River basin. The authority has the power and duty
to develop and to implement programs relating to the locks and dams on the
Kentucky River; to acquire, to sell and to lease property; to develop
recreational areas; to issue revenue bonds; to assess fees for water use; to
contract for services; to adopt administrative regulations protecting water in
the Kentucky River basin; to develop and to implement comprehensive plans for
protecting the water of the Kentucky River basin; and to collaborate with the
Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet and other state agencies
in coordinating Kentucky River basin water resource and water quality
activities. This administrative regulation establishes definitions pertaining
to those powers and duties.
Section 1.
Definitions.
(1) "Administrative services"
means clerical assistance provided by the cabinet in accordance with KRS 151.710(10), including secretarial and bookkeeping assistance.
(2) "Annual report" means the report the
authority submits annually to the Governor and to the Legislative Research
Commission pursuant to KRS 151.710(12).
(3) "Best management practices" or "BMPs"
means those practices which are effective and practical structural or
nonstructural methods which prevent or reduce the movement of pollutants from
the land to surface water or groundwater, or which otherwise protect surface
water or groundwater from potential adverse effects of land use activities such
as agricultural or silvicultural activities, stormwater run-off, spills or
leaks, and land application or land disposal of waste.
(4) "Cabinet" means the Natural Resources and
Environmental Protection Cabinet created pursuant to KRS 224.10-010.
(5) "County long-range water resource plan"
means the county long-range water resource plan submitted by a county for the
authority's review pursuant to KRS 151.720(9) and 420 KAR 1:030.
(6) "Discharge" or "discharge of a pollutant"
means any addition of any pollutant or combination of pollutants to surface
water or groundwater of the Kentucky River basin from any point source. This
includes additions of pollutants into waters of the Kentucky River basin from
surface run-off which is collected or channeled by man; discharges through
pipes, sewers or other conveyances whether publicly or privately owned; and
discharges through pipes, sewers, or other conveyances leading into privately
or publicly owned treatment works.
(7) "Disposal" means the discharge, deposit,
injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of any waste into or on any
land or water so that the waste or any waste constituent may enter the
environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into water.
(8) "Diversion" means a nonconsumptive
redirection of all or part of the flow of a stream.
(9) "Drought response plan" means the drought
response plan for the Kentucky River basin developed by the authority pursuant
to KRS 151.720(9) and 420 KAR 1:030.
(10) "Effluent limitations" means any
restrictions or prohibitions established by 401 KAR Chapter 5.
(11) "Fee" means a water use fee for
protection of the surface water and groundwater of the Kentucky River basin,
paid to the authority by persons who use that water.
(12) "Floodplain" means the normally dry area
or wetland adjoining a stream or lake that is inundated during a flood
event.
(13) "Floodway" means that
area of a stream or watercourse necessary to carry off flood water as
determined by the cabinet or by the authority.
(14) "Gross withdrawal" means the amount of
water withdrawn.
(15) "Groundwater"
or "ground water" means all water which fills the natural openings under the
earth's surface, including all underground watercourses, artesian basins,
reservoirs, lakes, and other bodies of water below the earth's
surface.
(16) "Kentucky River
Authority" or "authority" means the Kentucky River Authority created pursuant
to KRS 151.710.
(17) "Kentucky
River basin" or "basin" means all geographic areas of the Commonwealth
contained within the watershed of the Kentucky River and its tributaries,
including surface water and groundwater, and delineated as hydrologic unit code
0510020 in the document entitled "Hydrologic Unit Map - 1974, State of
Kentucky", published in 1974 and reprinted in 1988, and incorporated by
reference in Section 2 of this administrative regulation.
(18) "Leakage" or "leak" means the amount of
water lost due to leaks in a water supply or water distribution system after it
has been withdrawn by the water supplier or purchased by the water supply
distributor.
(19) "Long-range water
resource plan" means the water supply plan described in 401 KAR 4:220, with the
additions required by 420 KAR 1:030.
(20) "Mainstem Kentucky River" means the
Kentucky River, including Pool 14, which extends from the North Fork of the
Kentucky River at River Mile 261.6 above the confluence of Walkers Creek, the
Middle Fork of the Kentucky River at River Mile 6.0 below the confluence of
Coal Branch, and the South Fork of the Kentucky River at River Mile 4.0 below
the confluence of Paw Paw Creek, to River Mile 0 at the confluence with the
Ohio River at Carrollton.
(21) "Map
of potential sources of water pollution" means the map of potential sources of
contamination described in 401 KAR 4:220, Section 6 with the additions required
by 420 KAR 1:030.
(22) "Net
withdrawal" means the difference between the amount of water withdrawn for
noncontact cooling water and the amount of that water discharged.
(23) "Noncontact cooling water" means surface
water or groundwater withdrawn from the Kentucky River basin for the purpose of
reducing the temperature of a product or equipment used in making a product, if
the following conditions exist:
(a) The
noncontact cooling water does not come into contact with the product;
(b) The noncontact cooling water is
discharged in accordance with a Kentucky Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(KPDES) permit that identifies the water as noncontact or once-through cooling
water;
(c) The noncontact cooling
water is discharged in accordance with water quality standards;
(d) The noncontact cooling water is
discharged within 300 linear feet of the withdrawal point or into the same pool
of water; and
(e) Net withdrawal is
no greater than ten (10) percent.
(24) "Nonpoint source pollution" means
pollution caused by diffuse sources, including land runoff, atmospheric
deposition, or percolation through soils and rocks.
(25) "Person" means an individual, trust,
firm, joint stock company, corporation (including a government corporation),
partnership, association, federal agency, state agency, city, commission,
political subdivision of the Commonwealth, interstate body, estate, or other
entity.
(26) "Point source" means
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, vessel, or
other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be discharged. This term
does not include return flows from irrigated agriculture.
(27) "Pollutant" means dredged spoil, solid
waste, hazardous waste, special waste, incinerator residue, sewage, sewage
sludge, garbage, chemical materials, biological materials, radioactive
materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, soil, industrial
waste, municipal waste, silvicultural waste, agricultural waste, and any
substance resulting from the development, processing, or recovery of any
natural resource which may be discharged into water.
(28) "Project" means a project authorized by
KRS 151.700 to 151.730 and approved by the authority, including staff and
overhead.
(29) "Quarterly report"
means the report the authority submits quarterly to the General Assembly's
Committee on Appropriations and Revenue pursuant to KRS 151.720(14).
(30) "Revenue bond" or "bond" means a revenue
bond described by KRS 151.720(5) and KRS 151.730.
(31) "Semipublic water supplier" means any
water supply system that serves more than three (3) families, but is not a
water supplier or distributor.
(32)
"Seven (7) day, ten (10) year low flow" or "7Q10" means that minimum average
flow which occurs for seven (7) consecutive days with a recurrence interval of
ten (10) years.
(33) "Standard" or
"water quality standard" means an administrative regulation adopted by the
authority, or by the cabinet if the authority fails to adopt it, establishing
the use to be made of a surface water or groundwater and the water quality
criteria necessary to maintain and protect that use.
(34) "Stream" means a river, creek or
channel, having well-defined banks, in which water flows for substantial
periods of the year to drain a given area, or any lake or other body of
water.
(35) "Surface waters" means
those above-ground waters having well-defined banks and beds, either constantly
or intermittently flowing; lakes and impounded waters; marshes and wetlands;
and any subterranean waters flowing in well-defined channels and having a
demonstrable hydrologic connection with the surface.
(36) "Tier I fee" means a fee:
(a) Funding watershed management projects of
benefit to the entire watershed of the Kentucky River basin and funding the
authority's general expenses;
(b)
Set by the authority based on the authority's budget; and
(c) Paid by all persons who use surface water
or groundwater of the Kentucky River basin.
(37) "Tier II fee" means a fee:
(a) Funding any project of benefit to a
certain part of the Kentucky River basin;
(b) Set by the authority based on the
authority's budget; and
(c) Paid by
all persons who use surface water or groundwater of the Kentucky River basin
and who derive a direct benefit from that project.
(38) "Transfer" means an interbasin diversion
of surface waters or groundwaters to or from the Kentucky River
basin.
(39) "Unified long-range
water resource plan" or "unified plan" means the unified long-range water
resource plan for the Kentucky River basin developed by the authority pursuant
to KRS 151.720(9) and 420 KAR 1:030.
(40) "Use" or "using", if referring to the
use of water in the Kentucky River basin described in KRS 151.720(5), means the
withdrawal of surface water from the Kentucky River or its tributaries, the
withdrawal of groundwater within the Kentucky River basin, the point source
discharge of pollutants to the Kentucky River or its tributaries, the point
source discharge of pollutants to groundwater within the Kentucky River basin,
the use of surface water from the Kentucky River or its tributaries for
generation of hydroelectric power, the diversion or transfer of waters in the
Kentucky River basin, and the use of the Kentucky River or its tributaries for
navigation or recreation. "Use" or "using" shall not apply to those facilities
using water primarily for agricultural purposes.
(41) "Water" means all rivers, streams,
creeks, lakes, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, wells, marshes and
wetlands, and all other bodies of surface or underground water, natural or
artificial, situated wholly or partly within or bordering upon the Kentucky
River basin.
(42) "Water
conservation" means methods and applications of passive and active water
savings and reuse devices, components and processes to reduce demand for water
supply.
(43) "Water pollution"
means the alteration of the physical, thermal, chemical, biological, or
radioactive properties of water in such a manner, condition, or quantity that
will be detrimental to the public health or welfare, to animal or aquatic life
or marine life, to the use of such waters as present or future sources of
public water supply or to the use of such waters for recreational, commercial,
industrial, agricultural, or other legitimate purposes.
(44) "Water resources map" means the water
resources map described in 401 KAR 4:220, Section 6, and required by 420 KAR 1:030.
(45) "Water shortage
emergency" means the authority's declaration that a significant number of
citizens in the emergency area are served by water suppliers that are
experiencing deficits in the amount of water available for use.
(46) "Water shortage response plan" means the
water shortage response plan described by 401 KAR 4:220, Section 6 and required
by 420 KAR 1:030.
(47) "Water
shortage warning" means the authority's declaration that some water suppliers
in the warning area are experiencing deficits in the amount of water available
for use.
(48) "Water shortage
watch" means the authority's declaration that hydrologic conditions exist in
the watch area that indicate the potential for deficits in the amount of water
available for use by water suppliers.
(49) "Water supplier" means any system that
provides water to the public for human consumption, has at least fifteen (15)
service connections or regularly serves an average of at least twenty-five (25)
individuals daily at least sixty (60) days of the year, and withdraws more than
fifty (50) percent of the water it distributes.
(50) "Water supply distributor" means any
system that provides water to the public for human consumption, has at least
fifteen (15) service connections or regularly serves an average of at least
twenty-five (25) individuals daily at least sixty (60) days of the year, and
depends on a water supplier to provide fifty (50) percent or more of the water
it distributes.
(51) "Water supply
plan" means the final plan document approved by the cabinet pursuant to KRS 151.110 through 151.118 and 401 KAR 4:220.
(52) "Water supply protection area" means the
designated watershed of a surface water supply source, or the designated
recharge area of a groundwater supply source, or a designated wellhead
protection area.
(53) "Water supply
source" means a particular site or classification of site where water is
withdrawn.
(54) "Watershed" means
all the area from which all drainage passes a given point downstream.
(55) "Wetlands" means land that has a
predominance of hydric soils and that is inundated or saturated by surface or
groundwaters at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under
normal circumstance does support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted
for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps,
marshes, bogs, floodplains and similar areas.
(56) "Withdraw" or "withdrawal of water"
means the actual removal or taking of water from any surface waters or
groundwaters of the Kentucky River basin.