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Alaska Statutes.

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

Chapter 4. Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Control

Section 900. Definitions.

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AS 46.04.900. Definitions.

In this chapter, unless the context requires otherwise,

(1) "barrel" is a measure of capacity equal to the space occupied by 42 U.S. gallons at 60 degrees Fahrenheit;

(2) "catastrophic oil discharge" means an oil discharge in excess of 100,000 barrels, or any other discharge which the governor determines presents a grave and substantial threat to the economy or environment of the state;

(3) "Clean Water Act" means the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (P.L. 92-500), as amended by the Clean Water Act of 1977 (P.L. 95-217), as amended (33 U.S.C. 1251 - 1376);

(4) "commissioner" means the commissioner of environmental conservation;

(5) "containment and cleanup" includes all direct and indirect efforts associated with the prevention, abatement, containment, or removal of a pollutant, and the restoration of the environment to its former state; when applied to expenses, the term includes the additional costs of providing a reasonable and appropriate function or service incurred in response to the discharge of a pollutant, including administrative expenses for the incremental costs of providing the function or service;

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

(7) "discharge" means spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, or dumping;

(8) "exploration facility" means a platform, vessel, or other facility used to explore for hydrocarbons in or on the waters of the state or in or on land in the state; the term does not include platforms or vessels used for stratigraphic drilling or other operations that are not authorized or intended to drill to a producing formation;

(9) "natural gas"

(A) means a hydrocarbon that at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and atmospheric pressure is in a gaseous state;

(B) includes liquefied natural gas or other form of natural gas that has been converted to a liquid state by pressure or cooling that at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and atmospheric pressure reverts to a gaseous state;

(10) [Repealed, Sec. 6 ch 79 SLA 2005].

(11) "nonpersistent product" has the meaning given to "non-persistent or Group I oil" in 33 C.F.R. 155.1020;

(12) "nontank vessel" means a self-propelled watercraft of more than 400 gross registered tons; in this paragraph, "watercraft" includes commercial fishing vessels, commercial fish processor vessels, passenger vessels, and cargo vessels, but does not include a tank vessel, oil barge, or public vessel;

(13) "oil" means oil of any kind and in any form, whether crude, refined, or a petroleum by-product, including but not limited to petroleum, fuel oil, gasoline, lubricating oils, oily sludge, oil refuse, oil mixed with other wastes, crude oils, liquefied natural gas, propane, butane, or other liquid hydrocarbons regardless of specific gravity;

(14) "oil barge" means a vessel which is not self-propelled and which is constructed or converted to carry oil as cargo in bulk;

(15) "oil terminal facility" means an onshore or offshore facility of any kind, and related appurtenances, including but not limited to a deepwater port, bulk storage facility, or marina, located in, on, or under the surface of the land or waters of the state, including tide and submerged land, that is used for the purpose of transferring, processing, refining, or storing oil; a vessel, other than a nontank vessel, is considered an oil terminal facility only when it is used to make a ship-to-ship transfer of oil, and when it is traveling between the place of the ship-to-ship transfer of oil and an oil terminal facility;

(16) "operator" means the person who, through contract, lease, sublease, or otherwise, exerts general supervision and control of activities at the facility; the term includes, by way of example and not limitation, a prime or general contractor, the master of a vessel and the master's employer, or any other person who, personally or through an agent or contractor, undertakes the general functioning of the facility;

(17) "persistent product" has the meaning given to "persistent oil" in 33 C.F.R. 155.1020;

(18) "person" means an individual, public or private corporation, political subdivision, government agency, municipality, industry, partnership, association, firm, trust, estate, or any other entity;

(19) "pipeline" means the facilities, including piping, compressors, pump stations, and storage tanks, used to transport crude oil and associated hydrocarbons between production facilities or from one or more production facilities to marine vessels;

(20) "production facility" means a drilling rig, drill site, flow station, gathering center, pump station, storage tank, well, and related appurtenances on other facilities to produce, gather, clean, dehydrate, condition, or store crude oil and associated hydrocarbons in or on the water of the state or on land in the state, and gathering and flow lines used to transport crude oil and associated hydrocarbons to the inlet of a pipeline system for delivery to a marine facility, refinery, or other production facility;

(21) "public vessel" means a vessel that is operated by and is either owned or bareboat chartered by the United States, a state or a political subdivision of that state, or a foreign nation, except when the vessel is engaged in commerce;

(22) "railroad tank car" means rolling stock used to transport oil in bulk as cargo by rail;

(23) "response action" means an action taken to respond to a release or threatened release of oil, including mitigation, cleanup, or removal;

(24) "self-propelled" means propelled either by machinery aboard the vessel, or by a tug or other vessel secured into the cargo-carrying vessel through special hull design;

(25) "service" means a function performed or service provided by the state, including functions not previously performed and services not previously provided by the state;

(26) "tank vessel" means a self-propelled waterborne vessel that is constructed or converted to carry liquid bulk cargo in tanks and includes tankers, tankships, and combination carriers when carrying oil; the term does not include vessels carrying oil in drums, barrels, or other packages, or vessels carrying oil as fuel or stores for that vessel;

(27) "train" means connected rolling stock operated as a single moving vehicle on rails; for purposes of this paragraph, "connected rolling stock" includes railroad tank cars;

(28) "vessel" includes tank vessels, oil barges, and nontank vessels;

(29) "village" means a place within the unorganized borough or within a borough as to a power, function, or service that is not exercised or provided by the borough on an areawide or nonareawide basis that

(A) has irrevocably waived, in a form approved by the Department of Law, any claim of sovereign immunity that might arise under this chapter; and

(B) has

(i) a council organized under 25 U.S.C. 476 (sec. 16 of the Indian Reorganization Act);

(ii) a traditional village council recognized by the United States as eligible for federal aid to Indians; or

(iii) a council recognized by the commissioner of commerce, community, and economic development under regulations adopted by the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development to determine and give official recognition of village entities under AS 44.33.755(b);

(30) "waters of the state" includes lakes, bays, sounds, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, wells, rivers, streams, 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 the state or under the jurisdiction of the state.