Wyoming Administrative Code
Agency 020 - Environmental Quality, Dept. of
Sub-Agency 0011 - Water Quality
Chapter 9 - WYOMING GROUNDWATER POLLUTION CONTROL PERMIT
Section 9-2 - Definitions

(a) "Aquifer" means a zone, stratum or group of strata that can store and transmit water in sufficient quantities for a specific use.

(b) "Area of review" means the area for which information and analyses will be submitted as part of a groundwater pollution control permit application, and reviewed for issuance of a permit; the extent of the area will never be less than an area within a 1/4 mile radius of the discharge site. The area of review may coincide with a permit area and adjacent lands, or may be determined by use of a mathematical model and formula that have been developed to describe groundwater hydraulics and flow.

Methodology for determining the area of review is not limited to a specific method, as long as the method used can be documented as being appropriate. The formula recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for determining the radius of endangering influence may be used. This formula is given as:

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where:

R = Radius from injection or discharge well (feet)

K = Hydraulic conductivity of the injection or discharge zone (feet/day)

H = Thickness of the injection or discharge zone (feet)

t = Time of injection or discharge (days)

S = Storage coefficient (dimension less)

Q = Injection or discharge rate (feet /day)

hbo = Original hydrostatic head of formation fluid (feet) measured from top of injection or discharge zone

hw = Hydrostatic head of underground source of water (feet) measured from top of injection or discharge zone

SpGB = Specific gravity of formation fluid (dimension less)

[PI] = 3.14

(c) "Background" means the constituents or parameters and the concentrations or measurements that describe water quality and water quality variability prior to the subsurface discharge.

(d) "Best management alternative" means the subsurface discharge operation or action described that, after problem assessment and examination of alternative methods, is proposed as the most practically effective (including technological, economic, environmental and institutional considerations) means of waste management.

(e) "Commercial waste" means waste or pollutants resulting from a commercial activity.

(f) "Discharge area" means the area designated by an owner/operator and/or specified in a permit or permit application as the area that will be involved in a subsurface discharge operation. It may coincide with the area of review.

(g) "Discharge zone" means the receiver proposed in the permit application or into which the permittee has been authorized by permit to discharge pollution or wastes.

(h) "Domestic waste" means pollutants or waste from residences, business buildings, institutions and public water supplies.

(i) "Dry well" means any well that, upon completion, does not collect groundwater.

(j) "Endangerment" means exposure to actions or activities that could pollute Groundwaters of the State.

(k) "Fluid" means any material that flows or moves whether semisolid, liquid, sludge, gas or any other form or state.

(l) "Groundwater" means subsurface water that fills available openings in rock or soil materials such that they may be considered water saturated tinder hydrostatic pressure.

(m) "Groundwaters of the State" are all bodies of underground water that are wholly or partially within the boundaries of the State.

(n) "Hazardous material (or wastes)" means any matter (or wastes) of any description including petroleum related products and radioactive material that, when discharged into any waters of the State, presents an imminent and substantial hazard to public health or welfare and shall include all materials (or wastes) so designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Register for March 13, 1978 (Part III), Water Programs, Hazardous Substances.

(o) "Industrial waste" is waste or pollutants resulting from an industrial activity.

(p) "Logging data" means the written record progressively describing the strata and geologic and hydrologic character thereof to include electrical, radioactivity and similar surveys, a lithologic description of all cores, and test data.

(q) "Mechanical integrity" means the sound and unimpaired condition of all components of the well or facility or system for control of a subsurface discharge and associated activities.

(r) "Mining wastes" refers to waste or pollutants resulting from any mining activity.

(s) "Monitor" means obtain fluid samples for analysis and/or water level measurements, or observe and record.

(t) "Municipal waste" means pollutants or waste from a municipal collection, storage or treatment facility.

(u) "New subsurface discharge facility" means a subsurface discharge facility for which construction starts after the effective date of these regulations.

(v) "Permit" means a Wyoming Groundwater Pollution Control Permit, unless otherwise identified.

(w) "Recharge" means replenishment of groundwater.

(x) "Receiver" means any zone, interval, formation or unit in the subsurface into which fluids and pollutants are discharged.

(y) "Special process discharge" is a subsurface discharge for the purpose of recovering a product or fluid at the surface, and includes any process used to obtain products or solutions of uranium, copper, oil shale, hydrocarbon-impregnated sands and sandstones and tar sands not amenable to oil field production modes, sulfur, coal and lignite, bedded salt, sodium, potassium, phosphate or any other naturally occurring mineral commodity; excepting, it does not include the primary or enhanced recovery of naturally occurring oil and gas.

(z) "Subsidence" means a lowering of a portion of the earth's surface or substrata that is detectable by visual observation or by instrumentation above or below the surface.

(aa) "Subsidence control discharge" means a discharge into a non-oil or gas producing receiver to reduce or eliminate subsidence associated with the withdrawal of subsurface fluids or solids.

(bb) "Subsurface" means any level below the surface.

(cc) "Subsurface discharge" means a discharge to a receiver.

(dd) "Subsurface discharge facility" means any construction, such as a well, or utilization by a permittee to discharge pollution or waste into a receiver.

(ee) "System" means each and all components of a subsurface discharge facility.

(ff) "Toxic characteristics (or wastes)" are those characteristics (or wastes) that are due to the presence of: Those substances or combinations of substances including disease-causing agents, that, after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion, inhalation or assimilation into any environmentally significant organism, either directly from the environmental or indirectly by ingestion through food chains, may cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic malfunctions, physiological malfunctions (including malfunctions in reproduction) or physical deformation in such organisms or their offspring; and include all substances so designated as toxic or hazardous by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Register for December 24, 1975 (Part IV), Water Programs, National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulations.

(gg) "Vadose zone" means the unsaturated zone in the earth, between the land surface and the top of the first saturated aquifer that is not a perched water aquifer. The vadose zone characteristically contains liquid water under less than atmospheric pressure and water vapor and air or other gases at atmospheric pressure. Perched water bodies exist within the vadose zone.

(hh) "Well" means an opening, excavation, shaft or hole in the ground allowing or used for a subsurface discharge or for the purpose of extracting a fluid, mineral, product or pollutant from the subsurface or for monitoring.