Rules & Regulations of the State of Tennessee
Title 0400 - Environment and Conservation
Subtitle 0400-40 - Water Resources (WPC)
Chapter 0400-40-07 - Aquatic Resource Alteration
Section 0400-40-07-.03 - DEFINITIONS

(1) "Act" means The Tennessee Water Quality Control Act of 1977, as amended, T.C.A. §§ 69-3-101 et seq.

(2) "Activity" means any and all work or acts associated with the performance, or carrying out of a project or a plan, or construction of a structure.

(3) "Appreciable permanent loss of resource values" means a reduction in resource values that is expected to continue without fundamental change and is large enough to be observed and measured as resulting in more than minimal adverse effects.

(4) "Aquatic Resource Alteration Permit" or "ARAP" means a permit issued pursuant to T.C.A. § 69-3-108 of the Act, which authorizes the alteration of properties of waters of the state that result from activities other than discharges of wastewater through a pipe, ditch, or other conveyance.

(5) "Best management practices" or "BMPs" means a schedule of activities, prohibition of practices, maintenance procedures, and other management practices to prevent or reduce the pollution of waters of the state. BMPs include methods, measures, practices, and design and performance standards.

(6) "Certification" means an Aquatic Resource Alteration Permit under the Act, when required by § 401 of the federal Water Pollution Control Act, which certifies, either unconditionally or through imposition of terms under which the activity must be carried out, that the activity will comply with applicable provisions of §§ 301, 302, 303, 306, and 307 of the federal Water Pollution Control Act and Chapter 0400-40-01 of the rules of the Board of Water Quality, Oil and Gas and the Department of Environment and Conservation and the Act.

(7) "Channelization" means the alteration of stream channels including but not limited to straightening, widening, or enlarging.

(8) "Constructed wetland" means a wetland intentionally designed, built and operated on previously nonwetland sites for the primary purpose of wastewater treatment or stormwater retention; such wetlands are not created to provide mitigation for adverse impacts or other wetlands.

(9) "Cumulative impacts" means the impact on resource values which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions.

(10) "Debris" means woody materials, trash, flotsam, dislodged vegetation, and other potentially mobile materials which may, when located within a stream channel, contribute to flow blockage. This does not include gravel, sand, soil or its constituents such as silt, clay, or other sediments.

(11) "Ditch" means a man-made excavation for the purpose of conveying water. Ditches do not include streams, modified streams, or canals.

(12) "Division" means the Division of Water Resources within the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

(13) "Dredging" (sand and gravel dredging) means the removal of sand, gravel, and similar sediments or deposits from a stream, river, or lake bed or wetland by any method.

(14) "Emergency" means a situation where life, public health, the environment, or substantive improvements to real property is in immediate danger.

(15) "Erosion" means the process by which the land surface is worn away by the action of water, wind, gravity, chemicals, or a combination thereof.

(16) "Existing conditions" means the biological, chemical, bacteriological, radiological, and physical conditions of a stream or wetland at the time the project is proposed as measured by a quantitative assessment tool or other defensible scientific method as approved or determined by the Division.

(17) "General Permit" means a permit issued under the Act and this rule authorizing an alteration to state waters within the state for a specified category of activities that are substantially similar in nature.

(18) "Ground water" means water beneath the surface of the ground within the zone of saturation, whether or not flowing through known and definite channels.

(19) "HUC" means the hydrologic unit code assigned by the United States Geological Survey.

(20) "Individual Permit" means a permit issued by the Division to a specified person to conduct specified activities at a specified location. This type of permit does not authorize an activity by a class of persons or the public in general.

(21) "In the dry" means in such a manner that no equipment or dredged material is in contact with the stream or wetland and that the soil water boundary is not disturbed by equipment or that no infiltration is pumped to the stream from the dredge site.

(22) "Minimal impacts" means an activity for which the scope is very limited in area, the impact is very short in duration, and that has no appreciable impact to waters just downstream of the location of the activity.

(23) "Mitigation" means the restoration, creation, enhancement, and/or preservation of aquatic resources to compensate for unavoidable impacts as provided by paragraph (7) of Rule 0400-40-07-.04.

(24) "Practicable alternative" is an alternative that is available and capable of being done after taking into consideration cost, existing technology, and logistics in light of overall project purposes.

(25) "Resource values" are the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the water resource that help maintain classified uses. These properties may include, but are not limited to, the ability of the water resource to:

(26) "Sediment" means soil or its constituents that has been deposited in water, is in suspension in water, is being transported, or has otherwise been removed or disturbed from its site of origin.

(27) "Sedimentation" or "Siltation" mean the process by which sediment is deposited in or by the waters of the state.

(28) "Stabilize" means the proper placing, grading, and/or covering of soil, rock, or earth to insure their resistance to erosion, sliding, or other movement.

(29) "Stream" means a surface water that is not a wet weather conveyance. For purposes of this chapter, and permits issued pursuant to this chapter, a wetland is not a stream. See definition of wetland.

(30) "Structure" means any building, pier, wharf, dolphin, weir, boom, breakwater, bulkhead, revetment, riprap, jetty, mooring structure, moored floating vessel, piling, aid to navigation, bridge, culvert, or any other obstacle or obstruction.

(31) "Wetland" means an area that is inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater 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.

(32) "Wet weather conveyances" are man-made or natural watercourses, including natural watercourses that have been modified by channelization, that flow only in direct response to precipitation runoff in their immediate locality, whose channels are at all times above the groundwater table, that are not suitable for drinking water supplies, and in which hydrological and biological analyses indicate that, under normal weather conditions, due to naturally occurring ephemeral or low flow there is not sufficient water to support fish, or multiple populations of obligate lotic aquatic organisms whose life cycle includes an aquatic phase of at least two months.

Terminology not specifically defined herein shall be defined in accordance with the Act and the rules adopted thereunder.