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Alaska Statutes.

Title 46. Water, Air, Energy, and Environmental Conservation

Chapter 3. Environmental Conservation

Section 826. Definitions For AS 46.03.822

previous: Section 825. Oil Spill Response Action Contractors.
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AS 46.03.826. Definitions For AS 46.03.822

In AS 46.03.822 - 46.03.828

(1) "act of God" means an act of nature which is unforeseeable in kind or degree;

(2) "economic benefit" means a benefit measurable in economic terms, including but not limited to the gathering, catching, or killing of food or other items utilized in a subsistence economy and their replacement cost;

(3) "facility"

(A) includes a

(i) building, structure, installation, equipment, well, pit, pond, lagoon, impoundment, ditch, landfill, storage container, motor vehicle, rolling stock, aircraft, or pipe or pipeline, including a pipe into a sewer or publicly-owned treatment works;

(ii) site or area at which a hazardous substance has been deposited, stored, disposed of, placed, or otherwise located;

(B) does not include any consumer product in consumer use;

(4) "having control over a hazardous substance" means producing, handling, storing, transporting, or refining a hazardous substance for commercial purposes immediately before entry of the hazardous substance into the atmosphere or in or upon the water, surface, or subsurface land of the state, and specifically includes bailees and carriers of a hazardous substance;

(5) "hazardous substance" means

(A) an element or compound which, when it enters into the atmosphere or in or upon the water or surface or subsurface land of the state, presents an imminent and substantial danger to the public health or welfare, including but not limited to fish, animals, vegetation, or any part of the natural habitat in which they are found;

(B) oil; or

(C) a substance defined as a hazardous substance under 42 U.S.C. 9601(14);

(6) "natural resources" means land, fish, wildlife, biota, air, water, ground water, drinking water supplies, and other such resources belonging to, managed by, held in trust by, appertaining to, or otherwise controlled by the state or a municipality;

(7) "oil" means a derivative of a liquid hydrocarbon and includes crude oil, lubricating oil, sludge, oil refuse or another petroleum-related product or by-product;

(8) "owner" and "operator"

(A) mean

(i) in the case of a vessel, any person owning, operating, or chartering by demise, a vessel;

(ii) in the case of facility, any person owning or operating the facility;

(iii) in the case of an abandoned facility or vessel, any person who owned, operated, or otherwise controlled activities at the facility or vessel immediately before the abandonment; and

(iv) in the case of a facility or vessel, title or control of which was conveyed due to bankruptcy, foreclosure, tax delinquency, abandonment, or similar means to a unit of the state or a political subdivision of the state, any person who owned, operated, or otherwise controlled the facility or vessel immediately beforehand;

(B) do not include a person who, without participating in the management of a vessel or facility, holds indicia of ownership primarily to protect that person's security interest in the vessel or facility;

(9) "release" means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment, including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles containing any hazardous substance, but excluding

(A) any release that results in exposure to persons solely within a workplace, with respect to a claim that those persons may assert against the persons' employer; and

(B) emissions from the engine exhaust of a motor vehicle, rolling stock, aircraft, or vessel;

(10) "response action contract" means a written contract or agreement to provide response action with respect to a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance entered into by a person with

(A) the department;

(B) another person who has entered into an agreement with the department that provides for response action subject to the department's oversight and control;

(C) a federal agency with jurisdiction over the release or threatened release; or

(D) another person potentially liable for the release or threatened release under state or federal law;

(11) "response action contractor" means

(A) a person who enters into a response action contract with respect to a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance and who is carrying out the contract, including a cooperative organization formed to maintain and supply response equipment and materials that enters into a response action contract relating to a release or threatened release;

(B) a person who is retained or hired by and is under the control of a person described in (A) of this paragraph to provide services related to the response action contract; and

(C) a person who acts as a volunteer and is engaged in a response action.

(12) "subsistence economy" means an economy which utilizes on a regular basis an item which is owned in common by the people of the state, or the United States, including but not limited to fish, game, fur bearing animals, birds, timber or any part of the natural habitat for noncommercial purposes;

(13) "transport" means the movement of a hazardous substance by any mode, including pipeline; in the case of a hazardous substance that has been accepted for transportation by a common or contract carrier, "transport" includes any stoppage in transit that is temporary, incidental to the transportation movement, and at the ordinary operating convenience of a common or contract carrier, and any stoppage of this type shall be considered as a continuity of movement and not as the storage of a hazardous substance;

(14) "vessel" means every description of watercraft or other artificial contrivance that is used, or is capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water, or that carries hazardous substances for the purpose of incineration of the hazardous substances;

(15) "water, surface or subsurface land of the state" means all water, surface or subsurface land within the territorial limits of the State of Alaska.