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Sewer Use Rules and Regulations - August 2003

Article III - Definitions

Unless the context specifically and clearly indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in these Sewer Use Rules and Regulations shall be as follows:

  1. "Act" means the Municipal authorities Act, 53 Pa. C.S. Ch 56 (formerly the Municipality Authorities Act of 1945), of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the acts amendatory thereof and supplemental thereto.

  2. "Approval Authority" means the Director of the DEP's Division of Water Resources or his/her authorized representatives.

  3. "Authority" means the Western Westmoreland Municipal Authority, a public body, politic and corporate, of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (also referred to as WWMA).

  4. "Authorized Representative of the User" - An authorized representative of the user may be: (1) A principal executive officer of at least the level of vice president, if the user is a corporation; (2) A general partner or proprietor if the user is a partnership or proprietorship, respectively; (3) A duly authorized representative of the individual designated above if such representative is responsible for the overall operation of the facilities from which the indirect discharge originates; (4) A Board member or other designated person from a municipality or municipal authority.

  5. "Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)" means the quantity of oxygen, expressed in milligrams per liter, utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure for five (5) days at twenty (20) degrees Centigrade.  The standard laboratory procedure shall be as defined in the latest publication of 40 CFR Part 136 "Guidelines Establishing Test Procedures for the Analysis of Pollutants".

  6. "Building Sewer" means the extension from the building sewer system to the local sewerage system.

  7. "Categorical Pretreatment Standards" - A pretreatment standard promulgated by the EPA or DEP specifying quantities or concentrations of pollutants or pollutant properties which may be discharged or introduced into a POTW by existing or new industrial users in specific industrial subcategories.

  8. "Chlorine Demand" means the quantity of chlorine absorbed in water, wastewater or other liquids, allowing a residual of 0.1 parts per million (ppm) by weight after fifteen (15) minutes of contact.  The standard laboratory procedure shall be as defined in the latest publication of 40 CFR Part 136 "Guidelines Establishing Test Procedures for the Analysis of Pollutants".

  9. "Commonwealth" means the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

  10. "Company" means any corporation, limited liability company and partnerships formed under the laws of the Commonwealth or any other state.

  11. "Compatible Pollutant" -Biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, pH, fecal coliform bacteria, oil and grease, and such additional pollutants as are now or may be in the future specified and controlled in the Authority's NPDES permit, where the POTW is designed to treat such pollutants and, in fact, does treat such pollutants to the degree required by the permit.

  12. "Composite Sample" means a sample which is taken and consists of several portions of specific volumes collected during a specific time period and combined to make a representative sample.

  13. "Cooling Water" means any water used for the purpose of carrying away excess heat, and which may contain biocides or similar substances that are used to control biological growth.

  14. "Department" means the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, or any successor agency have the same or similar functions as the current Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

  15. "Chairman" means the Chairman of the WWMA or his/her authorized representatives.

  16. "Discharge Permit" means the permit issued by the Authority to certain users which allows for the discharge of industrial wastewater with certain characteristics into the treatment works.

  17. "Domestic Wastewater" means the liquid waste or liquid borne waste (1) resulting from the non-commercial preparation, cooking and handling of food and/or (2) consisting of human excrement and similar wastes from sanitary conveniences.

  18. "EPA" means the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

  19. "Equivalent Dwelling Unit (EDU)" is a unit of measure equal to 50,000 gal of wastewater flow per year, or as otherwise defined in these regulations.

  20. "Federal Act" means the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 and subsequent amendments and the Clean Water Act of 1977 and subsequent amendments.

  21. "Garbage" means domestic or commercial solid wastes, excluding hazardous wastes or incompatible pollutants, resulting from the preparation, cooking, and dispensing of food and from handling, storage and sale of produce.

  22. "Government" means the United States of America or any department or agency thereof.

  23. "Grab Sample" means a sample which is taken on a one-time basis with no regard to the flow and without consideration of time.

  24. "Holding Tank Waste" means any waste from holding tanks such as vessels, chemical toilets, campers, trailers, septic tanks, marina holding tanks and vacuum pump tank trucks.

  25. "Incompatible Pollutant" means any pollutant which is not a "compatible pollutant" as defined in this section.

  26. "Indirect Discharge" means the discharge or the introduction of nondomestic pollutants from any source regulated under Section 307(b) or (c) of the Act, (33 U.S.C 1317), into the POTW (including holding tank waste discharged into the system).

  27. "Industrial User" means any nonresidential user or users identified in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual, 1987, Office of Management and Budget, as amended and supplemented under one of the following divisions:

    Division A. Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing

    Division B. Mining

    Division D. Manufacturing

    Division E. Transportation, Communications, Electric, Gas, and Sanitary Services

    Division I. Services

  28. "Industrial Wastewater" means the wastewater resulting from the processes employed by an industrial or commercial user with any groundwater, surface water, and storm water that may be present, whether treated or untreated, that is discharged into a treatment works.

  29. "Interceptor Sewer" means a sewer of the Authority which carries wastewater and, where permitted, a combined flow of wastewater and stormwater.

  30. "Interference" means (1) inhibiting or disrupting a treatment works system or its treatment processes or operations, or its sludge processes, use or disposal which is a cause of or significantly contributes to either a violation of any requirement of a State or Federal permit and/or the Authority's Sewer Use Rules and Regulations under which the treatment works operates; or (2) discharging industrial wastewater which, in combination with existing domestic flows are of such volume and/ or strength as to exceed the treatment process capacity of the treatment works; or (3) preventing the use or disposal of sludge produced by the treatment works in accordance with Section 405 of the Federal Act and the State Guidelines for the Utilization and Disposal of Municipal and Industrial Sludges and Septage: or any regulations or criteria or guidelines developed pursuant to the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (42 U.S.C. 7401 et. seq.), and the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act (15 U.S.C. 2601 et. seq.).

  31. "Local Authority" means any public body, corporate and politic, of the Commonwealth.

  32. "Local Collection Sewerage System" or "Local Sewerage System" means all sewerage systems of Participants or customers that are or may be connected to the regional sewerage system, including any extensions or enlargements of such systems.

  33. "Municipality" means any city of any class, any borough, village, town, township, or any other municipality other than a county or a school district, located within or without the Service Area.

  34. "National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)" means the national program for issuing, modifying, revoking and reissuing, terminating, monitoring and enforcing discharge permits and imposing and enforcing pretreatment requirements under Sections 307, 402, 318 & 405 of the Clean Water Act of 1977 (33 U.S.C. 1251 et. seq.).

  35. "Participant" means any of the following that have executed a service agreement or contract with the Authority: Government, State, municipality, local authority or private sewer or utility company.

  36. "Person" means any Participant, customer, individual, firm, company, partnership, corporation, association, group or society, including the Commonwealth, and agencies, districts, commissions, and political subdivisions created by or pursuant to State law, and Federal agencies, departments or instrumentalities thereof.

  37. "pH" means the logarithm (base 10) of the reciprocal of the concentration of hydrogen ions in grams per liter of solution. Solutions with a pH greater than 7 are said to be basic; solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic; pH equal to 7 is considered neutral.

  38. "Pollutant" means any dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, refuse, oil, grease, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive substance, thermal waste, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt, and industrial, municipal or agricultural waste or other residue discharged into the waters of the State.

  39. "Pretreatment" means the application of physical, chemical and biological processes to reduce the amount of pollutants in, or alter the nature of the polluting properties of, an industrial wastewater prior to discharging such wastewater into the treatment works.

  40. "Pretreatment Standards" means any standard developed and adopted by the Authority specifying the quantities or concentration of pollutants or pollutant properties which may be discharged or introduced into a POTW by existing or new industrial users.

  41. "Prohibited Pollutants" means any pollutant in amount exceeding standards promulgated by the EPA or any subsequent Federal legislation of the EPA pursuant to Section 307(a) of the Clean Water Act of 1977, including, but not limited to, those listed in these regulations and those chemical elements or compounds, phenols or other tastes or odor-producing substances, or any other substances normally not found in unpolluted waters which are not susceptible to treatment or which may interfere with the biological processes or efficiency or which will pass through the treatment works plant.

  42. "Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW)" means a treatment works as defined by Section 212 of the Federal Act, (33 U.S.C. 1292). For the purposes of these Sewer Use Rules and Regulations, "POTW" shall also include local collection systems of participants or other sewers that convey wastewaters to the POTW from persons outside the Service Area who are, by service agreement or contract with the Authority, users of the Authority's POTW.

  43. "Regional Administrator" means the Administrator of Region Ill of the United States Environmental Protection Agency or his/her authorized representative.

  44. "Regional Sewerage System" means the facilities owned and/or constructed by the Authority consisting of all sewer conduits, pipe lines, force mains,interceptor sewers, pumping stations, treatment works plant, disposal systems, connections and outfalls, and all other plants, structures, equipment, boats: conveyances and works and other real and tangible personal property acquired or constructed or to be acquired or constructed by the Authority for the purposes of the Authority under the Act, but does not include the local collection sewerage system or other treatment facility or appurtenance owned and operated by any Participant or customer.

  45. "Secretary" -The Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) or his/her authorized representatives.

  46. "Service Area" means the geographical area served by the Authority and all Participants, and more specifically, the area as defined in the Service Agreement, with amendments thereto, situated within Westmoreland County, the Governing Bodies of which have entered into a Service Agreement with WWMA, with certain Amendments, agreeing that the WWMA shall be the sole purveyor of wastewater treatment and conveyance facilities to the member municipalities, or any party, unless other provisions are made with the WWMA through an amendment to the Service Agreement.

  47. "Septage" means the combination of liquid and solid residues resulting from the treatment of waterborne domestic waste in individual subsurface sewage disposal systems.

  48. "Significant Industrial User" means any user who discharges into the treatment works, industrial wastewater which either (1) exceeds 25,000 gallons per day, or (2) exceeds the mass equivalent of 25,000 gallons per day of waste based upon a BOD of 300 mg/l, a COD of 500 mg/l or suspended solids of 300 mg/l, or (3) contributes five percent or more of the daily mass loading of any of the pollutants listed in these regulations hereto which are entering the treatment works plant, or (4) constitutes an industrial user subject to Categorical Pretreatment Standards under 40 CFR 403.6 and 40 CFR Chapter I, Subchapter N.

  49. "Significant Noncomplier" is an IU who commits any of the following violations:

a.  Serious violation for the same hazardous pollutant or the same non-hazardous pollutant at the same discharge point source, in any two months of any six-  month period.

b. Exceed the monthly average or, in case of a pollutant for which no monthly average has been established, the monthly average of the daily maximums of an effluent limitation for the same pollutant at the same discharge point source by any amount in any four months of any six month period.

c. Technical review criteria: thirty-three (33) percent or more of all of the measurements for each pollutant parameter taken during a six month period exceed the product of the daily maximum limit or the average limit multiplied by the applicable TRC (TRC=1.4 for BOD, TSS, fats, oil and grease, and 1.2 for all other pollutants except pH).

d. Chronic violation: sixty- six (66) percent or more of all of the measurements for each pollutant parameter taken during a six month period exceed (by any magnitude) the average limit or the daily maximum limit.

e. Any other violation of a pretreatment effluent limit (daily maximum or longer-term average) that the Authority determines has caused, alone or in combination with discharges, interference or pass through (including endangering the health of POTW personnel or the general public ).

f. Any discharge of a pollutant that has caused imminent endangerment to human health, welfare or to the environment or has resulted in the POTW's exercise of its emergency authority under the General Pretreatment Regulations, 40 CFR 403.8 (f) (1) (vi) (B) to halt or prevent such a discharge.

g. Failure to submit required reports such as DMRs, 90-day compliance reports, periodic/self- monitoring reports, and reports on compliance with compliance schedules, within thirty (30) days after the due date.

h. Failure to submit a completed periodic/self-monitoring report in any two months of any six-month period.

i. Failure to meet, within ninety (90) days after the schedule date, a compliance milestone contained in a local control mechanism or enforcement order for starting construction, completing construction, or attaining final compliance.

j. Failure to accurately report noncompliance.

k. Any other violation or group of violations that the Authority/POTW determines will adversely affect the operation or implementation of the local pretreatment program.

  1. "Slug" means discharge of wastewater which in concentration of any given constituent or in quantity of flow exceeds for any period of duration longer than fifteen (15) minutes, more than five (5) times the average twenty-four (24) hour concentration of flows during normal operation.

  2. "State" means the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

  3. "State Act" means the Municipality Authorities Act, 53 Pa. C.S. Ch. 56 (formerly the Municipal Authorities Act of 1945), and any subsequent amendments thereto.

  4. "Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)" means a classification pursuant to the Standard Industrial Classification Manual issued by the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, 1987 and any amendments thereto.

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