18 AAC 63.900. Definitions

Unless the context indicates otherwise, in this chapter

(1) "active portion" means that portion of a hazardous waste management facility where treatment, storage, or disposal operations will be or have been conducted; the active portion of an underground injection well is the confining zone that consists of a geological formation, group of formations, or part of a formation that confines fluid movement to an injection zone;

(2) "approved" means approved in writing by the department;

(3) "aquifer" means a geologic formation, group of formations, or part of a formation capable of yielding a significant amount of groundwater to wells or springs;

(4) "ASTM" refers to tests established by the American Society for Testing and Materials, available from the department;

(5) "best available control technology" means that emission limitation that represents the maximum reduction achievable for each air contaminant, taking into account energy, environmental, and economic impacts, and other costs; the resulting emissions must comply with applicable federal emission standards; best available control technology may include, for example, design features, equipment specifications, work practices, operational standards, or combinations of these factors;

(6) "chemical waste landfill" means a landfill at which protection against risk of injury to health or the environment from migration of PCBs to land, water, or the atmosphere is provided from the PCBs or PCB Items deposited in that landfill by locating, engineering, and operating the landfill as specified in 40 C.F.R. 761.75 (codified as of July 1986);

(7) "commissioner" means the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation;

(8) "department" means the Department of Environmental Conservation;

(9) "facility" means all contiguous land, and the structures, other appurtenances, and improvements on the land, used for treating, storing, or disposing of hazardous waste, PCBs, or PCB Items; a facility may consist of one, several, or a combination of operational units;

(10) "hazardous waste" means waste that is defined as hazardous by 40 C.F.R. 261.3 (codified as of July 1986), or waste that includes a toxic pollutant identified in 40 C.F.R. 129.4 (codified as of July 1986), or is a waste or combination of wastes that, because of quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical, or infectious characteristics, might

(A) cause, or significantly contribute to, an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible or incapacitating reversible illness; or

(B) pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment if improperly managed, treated, stored, transported, or disposed of;

(11) "hazardous waste incinerator" means an enclosed device that

(A) uses controlled temperatures to convert or to change the chemical, physical, or biological character or composition of the hazardous waste;

(B) is not a PCB incinerator and that neither meets the criteria for classification as a boiler nor is listed as an industrial furnace; and

(12) "hazardous waste land facility" means either a surface impoundment, landfill other than a chemical waste landfill, land treatment facility, or waste pile, that treats, stores, or disposes of hazardous waste;

(13) "hazardous waste management facility" means any facility that treats, stores, or disposes of hazardous waste;

(14) "hazardous waste underground injection well" means a bored, drilled, or driven shaft, or dug hole, the depth of which is greater than the largest surface dimension, which receives hazardous waste that flows or moves, whether in a semisolid, liquid, sludge, gas, or any other form or state;

(15) "injection zone" means a geologic formation, group formation, or part of a formation receiving fluids through an underground injection well;

(16) "PCB" and "PCBs" means a chemical substance that is limited to the biphenyl molecule that has been chlorinated to varying degrees or any combination of substances which contains that substance; refer to 40 C.F.R. 761.1(b) (codified as of July 1986) for applicable concentrations of PCBs; PCB and PCBs as contained in PCB Items are defined in 40 C.F.R. 761.3 (codified as of July 1986); in this chapter, inadvertently generated non-Aroclor PCBs are defined as the total PCBs calculated following division of the quantity of monochlorinated biphenyls by 50 and dichlorinated biphenyls by 5;

(17) "PCB incinerator" means an engineered device that

(A) uses controlled flame combustion to change the chemical, physical, or biological character or composition of the PCBs and PCB Items;

(B) neither meets the criteria for classification as a boiler nor is listed as an industrial furnace; and

(18) "PCB Item" means a PCB Article, PCB Article Container, PCB Container, or PCB Equipment, as defined in 40 C.F.R. 761.3 (codified as of July 1986), that deliberately or unintentionally contains or has as part of it any PCB or PCBs;

(19) "point of compliance" means the vertical plane located at the hydraulically downgradient limit of the waste management area that extends down into the uppermost aquifer underlying the regulated waste;

(20) "release" means 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 a hazardous substance or pollutant or contaminant, but excludes

(A) a release that results in exposure to persons solely within a workplace, with respect to a claim that those persons might assert against their employer;

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

(C) release of source, byproduct, or special nuclear material from a nuclear incident, as those terms are defined in 42 U.S.C. 2014 (the Atomic Energy Act of 1954), if that release is subject to requirements with respect to financial protection established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under 42 U.S.C. 2210(a) (section 170 of the Act), or for the purposes of 42 U.S.C. 9604 (sec. 104 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980; CERCLA), or any response action, any release of source byproduct, or special nuclear material from a processing site designated under 42 U.S.C. 7912(a)(1) or 7942(a) (section 102(a)(1) or 302(a) of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978); and

(D) the normal application of fertilizer;

(21) "risk assessment" means the methods and procedures described by the EPA in the Federal Register, Vol. 51, No. 185, pages 33992 - 34003, Wednesday, September 24, 1986;

(22) "temporary" means operating in connection with a remedial response to the release of hazardous waste, PCBs, or PCB Items into the environment; a facility is temporary if it is operated more than one day and is removed from the site as soon as practicable after the operation is completed, but in no case longer than 1,000 days after the date of installation;

(23) "water" or "waters" means lakes, bays, sounds, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, creeks, estuaries, marshes, inlets, straits, passages, canals, the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, and Arctic Ocean, in the territorial limits of the state, and all other bodies of surface or underground water, natural or artificial, public or private, inland or coastal, fresh or salt, which are wholly or partially in or bordering upon the state or under jurisdiction of the state; "water" or "waters" does not include ponds or lagoons or parts of wastewater treatment systems which are lined or constructed in such a manner that seepage into the ground is not allowed;

(24) "water supply" means any of the waters of the state which are used or designated to be protected for fresh water or marine water uses, including water used for drinking, culinary, food processing, agricultural, aquacultural, seafood processing, or industrial purposes; and

(25) "wetlands" means areas that are inundated or saturated by surface water or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions; "wetlands" generally includes tundra and swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas.

History: Eff. 3/31/89, Register 109

Authority: AS 46.03.020

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