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Idaho Statutes
Idaho Statutes are updated to the website July 1 following the legislative session.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
CHAPTER 36
WATER QUALITY
39-3602. Definitions. Whenever used or referred to in this chapter, unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context, the following terms shall have the following meanings:
(1) "Applicable water quality standard" means those water quality standards identified in the rules of the department.
(2) "Attainable" beneficial uses means uses that can be achieved by the implementation of required effluent limits for point sources and cost-effective and reasonable best management practices for nonpoint sources.
(3) "Best management practice" means practices, techniques or measures developed, or identified, by the designated agency and identified in the state water quality management plan which are determined to be a cost-effective and practicable means of preventing or reducing pollutants generated from nonpoint sources to a level compatible with water quality goals.
(4) "Board" means the board of environmental quality.
(5) "Consult" or "consultation" with basin advisory groups and watershed advisory groups, when not otherwise defined in this chapter, means that the director shall:
(a) Upon request, provide the groups with all available information in the possession of the department concerning the subject of the consultation;
(b) Utilize the knowledge, expertise, experience and information of the groups in making the determination that is the subject of the consultation; and
(c) Consider the groups’ recommendations regarding the determination that is the subject of the consultation.
(6) "Control strategies" means cost-effective actions in TMDL implementation plans to control the discharge of pollutants that can reasonably be taken to improve the water quality within the physical, operational, economic and other constraints that affect individual enterprises and communities.
(7) "Degradation" or "lower water quality" means, for purposes of antidegradation review, a change in a pollutant that is adverse to designated or existing uses, as calculated for a new point source, and based upon monitoring or calculated information for an existing point source increasing its discharge. Such degradation shall be calculated or measured after appropriate mixing of the discharge and receiving water body.
(8) "Department" means the department of environmental quality.
(9) "Designated agency" means the department of lands for timber harvest activities, for oil and gas exploration and development and for mining activities; the soil and water conservation commission for grazing activities and for agricultural activities; the transportation department for public road construction; the department of agriculture for aquaculture; and the department of environmental quality for all other activities.
(10) "Designated use or designated beneficial use" means those uses assigned to waters as identified in the rules of the department whether or not the uses are being attained. The department may adopt subcategories of a use.
(11) "Director" means the director of the department of environmental quality, or his or her designee.
(12) "Discharge" means any spilling, leaking, emitting, escaping, leaching, or disposing of a pollutant into the waters of the state. For the purposes of this chapter, discharge shall not include surface water runoff from nonpoint sources or natural soil disturbing events.
(13) "Existing use" means those surface water uses actually attained on or after November 28, 1975, whether or not they are designated uses. Existing uses may form the basis for subcategories of designated uses.
(14) "Full protection, full support, or full maintenance of designated beneficial uses of water" means compliance with those levels of water quality criteria listed in the appropriate rules of the department, or where there is no applicable numerical criteria, compliance with the reference streams or conditions approved by the director in consultation with the appropriate basin advisory group.
(15) "General permit" means an NPDES permit issued by the U.S. environmental protection agency authorizing a category of discharges under the federal clean water act or a nationwide or regional permit issued by the U.S. army corps of engineers under the federal clean water act.
(16) "Integrated report" means the consolidated listing and reporting of the state’s water quality status pursuant to the federal clean water act.
(17) "National pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES)" means the point source permitting program established pursuant to section 402 of the federal clean water act.
(18) "New nonpoint source activity" means a new nonpoint source activity or a substantially modified existing nonpoint source activity on or adversely affecting an outstanding resource water which includes, but is not limited to, new silvicultural activities, new mining activities and substantial modifications to an existing mining permit or approved plan, new recreational activities and substantial modifications to existing recreational activities, new residential or commercial development that includes soil disturbing activities, new grazing activities and substantial modifications to existing grazing activities, except that reissuance of existing grazing permits, or grazing activities and practices authorized under an existing permit, is not considered a new activity. It does not include naturally occurring events such as floods, landslides, and wildfire including prescribed natural fire.
(19) "Nonpoint source activities" includes grazing, crop production, silviculture, log storage or rafting, construction, mining, recreation, septic systems, runoff from storms and other weather related events and other activities not subject to regulation under the federal national pollutant discharge elimination system. Nonpoint source activities on waters designated as outstanding resource waters do not include issuance of water rights permits or licenses, allocation of water rights, operation of diversions, or impoundments.
(20) "Nonpoint source runoff" means water which may carry pollutants from nonpoint source activities into the waters of the state.
(21) "Outstanding resource water" means a high quality water, such as water of national and state parks and wildlife refuges and water of exceptional recreational or ecological significance, which has been so designated by the legislature. It constitutes an outstanding national or state resource that requires protection from point source and nonpoint source activities that may lower water quality.
(22) "Person" means any individual, association, partnership, firm, joint stock company, joint venture, trust, estate, political subdivision, public or private corporation, state or federal governmental department, agency or instrumentality, or any legal entity, which is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties.
(23) "Point source" means any discernible, confined, and discrete conveyance including, but not limited to, any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, or vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants are, or may be, discharged. This term does not include return flows from irrigated agriculture, discharges from dams and hydroelectric generating facilities or any source or activity considered a nonpoint source by definition.
(24) "Pollutant" means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical waste, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, silt, cellar dirt; and industrial, municipal and agricultural waste, gases entrained in water; or other materials which, when discharged or released to water in excessive quantities cause or contribute to water pollution. Provided however, biological materials shall not include live or occasional dead fish that may accidentally escape into the waters of the state from aquaculture facilities.
(25) "Reference stream or condition" means one (1) of the following:
(a) The minimum biological, physical and chemical conditions necessary to fully support the designated beneficial uses; or
(b) A water body representing natural conditions with few impacts from human activities and which are representative of the highest level of support attainable in the basin; or
(c) A water body representing minimum conditions necessary to fully support the designated beneficial uses.
In highly mineralized areas or in the absence of such reference streams or water bodies, the director, in consultation with the basin advisory group and the technical advisers to it, may define appropriate hypothetical reference conditions or may use monitoring data specific to the site in question to determine conditions in which the beneficial uses are fully supported.
(26) "Short-term or temporary activity" means an activity which is limited in scope and is expected to have only minimal impact on water quality as determined by the director. Short-term or temporary activities include, but are not limited to, maintenance of existing structures, limited road and trail reconstruction, soil stabilization measures, and habitat enhancement structures.
(27) "Silviculture" means those activities associated with the regeneration, growing and harvesting of trees and timber including, but not limited to, disposal of logging slash, preparing sites for new stands of trees to be either planted or allowed to regenerate through natural means, road construction and road maintenance, drainage of surface water which inhibits tree growth or logging operations, fertilization, application of herbicides or pesticides, all logging operations, and all forest management techniques employed to enhance the growth of stands of trees or timber.
(28) "Soil and water conservation commission" means an agency of state government as created in section 22-2718, Idaho Code.
(29) "Soil conservation district" means an entity of state government as defined in section 22-2717, Idaho Code.
(30) "State" means the state of Idaho.
(31) "State water quality management plan" means the state management plan developed and updated by the department in accordance with sections 205, 208, and 303 of the federal clean water act.
(32) "Subbasin assessment" means a document that describes a watershed or watersheds for which a total maximum daily load is proposed, the water quality concerns, the status and attainability of designated uses and water quality criteria for individual water bodies, the nature and location of pollutant sources, past and ongoing pollutant control activities, and such other information that the director with the advice of the local watershed advisory group determines is pertinent to the analysis of water quality and the development and implementation of a total maximum daily load.
(33) "Total maximum daily load (TMDL)" means a plan for a water body not fully supporting designated beneficial uses and includes the sum of the individual wasteload allocations for point sources, load allocations for nonpoint sources, and natural background levels of the pollutant impacting the water body. Pollutant allocations established through TMDLs shall be at a level necessary to implement the applicable water quality standards for the identified pollutants with seasonal variations and a margin of safety to account for uncertainty concerning the relationship between the pollutant loading and water quality standards.
(34) "Waters or water body" means the navigable waters of the United States as defined in the federal clean water act. For the purposes of this chapter, water bodies shall not include municipal or industrial wastewater treatment or storage structures or private reservoirs, the operation of which has no effect on waters.
(35) "Water pollution" is such alteration of the thermal, chemical, biological or radioactive properties of any waters of the state, or such discharge or release of any contaminant into the waters of the state as will or is likely to create a nuisance or render such waters harmful or detrimental or injurious to public health, safety or welfare or to domestic, commercial, industrial, recreational, aesthetic or other legitimate uses or to livestock, wild animals, birds, fish or other aquatic life.
(36) "Water quality standards" are the designated uses of a water body and water quality criteria necessary to support those uses, and an antidegradation policy.
(37) "Watersheds" means the land area from which water flows into a stream or other body of water which drains the area. For the purposes of this chapter, the area of watersheds shall be recommended by the basin advisory group described in section 39-3613, Idaho Code.
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