North Carolina Administrative Code
Title 15A - Environmental Quality
Chapter 02 - ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Subchapter S - RULES AND CRITERIA FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE DRY-CLEANING SOLVENT CLEANUP FUND
Section .0100 - GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Section 02S .0102 - DEFINITIONS

(1) "Act" means the Dry-Cleaning Solvent Cleanup Act of 1997.

(2) "Apparel and household fabrics" means apparel and fabrics that have been purchased at retail or have been purchased at wholesale for rental at retail.

(3) "Business" means "business" as defined in G.S. 59-102.

(4) "Chemicals of concern" means the specific compounds and their breakdown products that are identified for evaluation in the risk-based corrective action process. Identification may be based on their historical and current use at the site, detected concentrations in environmental media, and their mobility, toxicity, and persistence in the environment.

(5) "Closed container solvent transfer system" means a device or system designed to fill a dry-cleaning machine with dry-cleaning solvent through a mechanical valve or sealed coupling in order to prevent spills or other loss of solvent liquids or vapors to the environment.

(6) "Complete exposure pathway" means an exposure pathway where a chemical of concern has reached a receptor.

(7) "Contaminated site" or "site" means the area defined by the current and future location of the chemicals of concern from a facility or abandoned site. A contaminated site may be an entire property or facility, a defined area or portion of a facility or property, or multiple facilities or properties.

(8) "Discovery Site" means the physical site or area where dry-cleaning solvent contamination has been discovered. A discovery site may or may not be the same property as the facility site.

(9) "Division" means the Division of Waste Management of the Department of Environmental Quality.

(10) "Dry-Cleaning Business" means a business having engaged in dry-cleaning operations or the operation of a wholesale distribution facility at a facility site.

(11) "Environmental media" means soil, sediment, surface water, groundwater, air, or other physical substance.

(12) "Engineering controls" means physical modifications to a site to reduce or eliminate the potential for exposure to chemicals of concern.

(13) "Exposure pathway" means the course that a chemical of concern takes or may take from a source area to a receptor. Each exposure pathway includes a source or release from a source of a chemical of concern, a point of exposure, an exposure route, and the receptor.

(14) "Facility site" means the physical location of a dry-cleaning facility, a wholesale distribution facility, or an abandoned site.

(15) "Hazard Index" means the sum of two or more hazard quotients for chemicals of concern or multiple exposure pathways to a particular receptor.

(16) "Hazard quotient" means the ratio of level of exposure of a chemical of concern over a specified time period to a reference dose for that chemical of concern derived for a similar exposure period.

(17) "Individual excess lifetime cancer risk" means the increase over background in an individual's probability of getting cancer over a lifetime due to exposure to a chemical.

(18) "Institutional controls" means nonengineered measures, including land-use restrictions, used to prevent unsafe exposure to contamination.

(19) "Material impervious to dry-cleaning solvent" means a material that has been certified by the manufacturer or an independent testing laboratory to maintain its chemical and structural integrity in the presence of the applicable dry-cleaning solvent and prevent the movement of dry-cleaning solvent for a period of a least 72 hours.

(20) "Monitored natural attenuation" means an approach to the reduction in the concentration of chemicals of concern in environmental media due to naturally occurring physical, chemical, and biological processes.

(21) "Non-residential land use" means a use that is not a residential land use.

(22) "Number of full time employees" means the number of full-time equivalent employees employed by a person who owns a dry-cleaning facility, as calculated pursuant to 15A NCAC 02S .0103.

(23) "Person" means "person" as defined in G.S. 143-215.77(13).

(24) "Petitioner" means a potentially responsible party who submits a petition for certification of a facility site.

(25) "Point of demonstration" means the location selected between the source area and a point of exposure where levels of chemicals of concern are measured to ensure that site-specific target levels are being met.

(26) "Point of exposure" means the location at which an individual or population may come in contact with a chemical of concern originating from a site.

(27) "Receptor" means any human, plant, or animal that is, or has the potential to be, adversely affected by the release or migration of chemicals of concern.

(28) "Reference dose" means a toxicity value for evaluating potential non-carcinogenic effects in humans resulting from exposure to a chemical of concern.

(29) "Remedial action plan" means a plan that outlines activities to be undertaken to clean up a contaminated site and to reduce or eliminate current or potential exposures to receptors.

(30) "Representative concentrations" means a typical or average concentration to which the receptor is exposed over the specified exposure duration, within a specified geographical area, and for a specific route of exposure.

(31) "Residential land use" means use for human habitation, including dwellings such as single family houses and multi-family apartments, children's homes, nursing homes, and residential portions of government-owned lands (local, State or federal). Because of the similarity of exposure potential and the sensitive nature of the potentially exposed human population, use for day care facilities, educational facilities, hospitals, and parks (local, State or federal) shall be considered residential land use for the purpose of land use classification.

(32) "Risk-based screening level" means chemical-specific, risk-based values for chemicals of concern that are protective of human health. The risk-based screening levels shall be as follows:

(33) "Site-specific target level" means risk-based values for chemicals of concern that are protective of human health for specified exposure pathways and are derived from a consideration of site-specific information. The site-specific target levels shall be consistent with the Department's risk-based corrective action standards under G.S. 130A-310.68.

(34) "Source" means non-aqueous phase liquid chemical, the locations of highest soil or ground water concentrations of the chemicals of concern, or the location releasing the chemical of concern.

(35) "Systemic toxicant" means a substance or agent that may enter the human body and have an adverse health effect other than causing cancer.

(36) "Unsaturated zone" means that part of the subsurface where interconnected voids are not all filled with water.