(a) These
regulations shall apply to any discharge to the subsurface including the vadose
zone that could render any Groundwater of the State unsuitable or degrade it
for all uses for which it was suitable prior to discharge. Class I and Class V
facilities are regulated pursuant to Chapters 13 and 16, respectively and are
not regulated under Chapter 9.
(b)
A permit for a discharge shall not be required if the discharge is part of a
facility for which an application has been made to the Division for a Permit to
Construct, Install or Modify Public Water Supplies and Wastewater
Facilities.
(c) Discharges, for the
purpose of these regulations, are described and identified as:
(i) Discharges of commercial, municipal and
industrial wastes, which include but are not limited to:
(A) Municipal wastes;
(B) Chemical, refining and manufacturing
wastes;
(C) Mining and mineral
processing wastes;
(D) Oil field
wastes including water produced with oil and gas;
(E) Power-generation wastes;
(F) Geothermal fluid return or geothermal
resource wastes;
(G) Nuclear and
radioactive wastes from any source; and
(H) Toxic and hazardous wastes from any
source.
Not included is a discharge that is further described by the
Administrator as a discharge of commercial, municipal and industrial wastes of
limited time and scope for the purpose of considering the effects specified in
W.S.
35-11-302(a) (vi) (A) through
(E), or for demonstrating compatibility
between the waste and the receiver and fluids in the receiver. This type of
discharge is identified as a Miscellaneous Discharge in Section 3.(c) (iii)
(H).
(ii)
Special process discharges:
(A) Special
process discharges include processes or operations called in situ gasification,
in situ mining, in situ leaching, borehole mining, slurry mining, solution
mining or by any other descriptive terminology; which in fact consist of
discharging fluids, including air, oxygen or steam, into and circulating
through subsurface rock formations or mineral accumulations, or of using a
hydraulic jet to slurrify a mineral commodity or of injecting fluids to
fracture rock strata and/or stimulate production, or a process involving
borehole fragmentation or blasting; as part of a process or operation,
excluding the production of naturally occurring oil and gas, whereby a
subsurface commodity is extracted remotely by activities that are conducted
from the surface.
(B) Not included
is a special process discharge that is further described by the Administrator
as a discharge of limited time and scope for the purpose of considering the
effects specified in
W.S.
35-11-302(a) (vi) (A) through
(E), or for demonstrating compatibility
between the injected fluid and the receiver and fluids in the receiver. This
type of discharge is identified as a Miscellaneous Discharge in Section 3(c)
(iii) (H).
(iii)
Discharges for the purpose of artificial recharge and miscellaneous discharges
which include but are not limited to:
(A)
Groundwater replenishment to augment water supplies.
(B) Injection(s) of chemicals used as
tracers.
(C) Discharge from
drainage well(s) that accept(s) urban storm water runoff or highway runoff or
excess ponded surface water.
(D)
Discharge of domestic wastes.
(E)
Discharge for subsidence control not associated with oil and gas
production.
(F) Discharge by means
of a facility constructed or utilized to discharge into an abandoned
underground mine for purposes other than oil and gas storage or commercial,
municipal or industrial waste disposal or storage.
(G) Discharge by means of a dry well not
constructed or utilized for any other identified discharge.
(H) Discharge of commercial, municipal and
industrial waste or a special process discharge from any facility that utilizes
subsurface discharges in an activity or operation of limited time and scope
conducted to determine facts bearing upon the reasonableness of the pollution
involved or that may result from the subsurface discharge, the economic
reasonableness of reducing or eliminating the source of pollution and the
effect upon the environment, pursuant to
W.S.
35-11-302(a) (vi) (A) through
(E); or for demonstrating the applicability
of a proposed methodology, or for demonstrating that pollution can be contained
and will not migrate into other receivers or to the surface; or for
demonstrating compatibility between waste and the receiver and fluids in the
receiver.
A miscellaneous discharge that is a special process discharge
of Section 3(c) (ii) (B), for the purpose of these regulations, is the same as
an in situ mining research, in a development testing project of Land Quality
Rules and Regulations, Chapter 18, Section
2(a).
