Ala. Admin. Code r. 335-15-1-.02 - Definitions

Unless otherwise defined in ADEM Admin. Code 335-15-1 through 335-15-7, the following words and terms shall have the meanings given below:

(a) "Alabama Land Recycling and Economic Redevelopment Commission" is the commission as established in the Code of Ala. 1975, § 22-30E-12.

(b) "ADEM" is the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

(c) "Applicant" is the owner, operator or prospective purchaser seeking to participate in the voluntary cleanup program by submission of an application under 335-15-2-.02.

(d) "Application fee" means the nonrefundable review fee submitted with the Voluntary Cleanup Program application.

(e) "Aquifer" means a geologic formation, group of formations or a part of a formation capable of yielding a significant amount of groundwater to wells or springs.

(f) "Brownfield" means real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or perceived presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.

(g) "Carcinogen" means a chemical classification for the purpose of risk assessment as an agent that is known or suspected to cause cancer in humans, including but not limited to a known or likely human carcinogen or a probable or possible human carcinogen under an EPA weight-of-evidence classification system.

(h) "Certification of compliance" means a statement prepared by a professional engineer or geologist licensed to practice in the State of Alabama which certifies compliance with a voluntary cleanup plan required by 335-15-4-.06.

(i) "Cleanup" means, for purposes of 335-15, the remediation, mitigation, control, or removal of contaminants from the environment in accordance with an approved "Voluntary Cleanup Plan".

(j) "Cleanup Properties Inventory" means the Voluntary Cleanup Properties Inventory compiled and updated as necessary by the Department pursuant to 335-15-6-.03(1) for all qualifying properties for which a property assessment plan or cleanup plan has been approved.

(k) "Commission" means the Alabama Environmental Management Commission as defined in Code of Ala. 1975, § 22-22A-3(4).

(l) "Completion" means fulfillment of the commitment agreed to by the participant as part of this program.

(m) "Contaminant" means any substance which results in alteration of the chemical, physical or biological integrity of soils, sediments, air and surface water or groundwater including:

1. Solid waste (as defined in ADEM Admin. Code 335-13); or

2. Petroleum product(s).

(n) "Department" means the Alabama Department of Environmental Management or its successor agency.

(o) "Director" means the Director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management or such other person to whom the director has delegated authority.

(p) "EPA" means the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

(q) "Engineer" means a person registered as a professional engineer with the State of Alabama Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors and practicing under the Rules of Professional Conduct, specifically Canon II.

(r) "Environment" is defined by the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C., Section 9601, et seq.

(s) "Environmental Covenant" as defined in ADEM Admin. Code 335-5-1-.03.

(t) "Facility" is a term synonymous with "property".

(u) "Fiduciary" means a person who acts for the benefit of another party as a bona fide trustee, executor, and/or administrator.

(v) "Geologist" means a person registered as a professional geologist with the State of Alabama pursuant to the Alabama Professional Geologist Licensing Act.

(w) "Hazardous constituent" as defined in ADEM Admin. Code 335-14-2 -Appendix VIII and/or ADEM Admin. Code 335-14-5 -Appendix IX.

(x) "Hazardous substance" means any substance included on the List of Hazardous Substances and Reportable Quantities, codified as 40 CFR Part 302, Table 302.4, in force and effect on the effective date of 335-15-1 and subsequent revisions thereof, or any substance listed on the List of Extremely Hazardous Substances and Their Threshold Planning Quantities, codified as 40 CFR Part 355, Appendix A, in force and effect on the effective date of 335-15 and subsequent revisions thereof.

(y) "Hazardous waste" means any solid waste as defined in ADEM Admin. Code 335-14.

(z) "Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage or Disposal Facility" means any property or facility which is intended or used for the treatment, storage or disposal of hazardous waste subject to the permit requirements of ADEM Admin. Code 335-14-8.

(aa) "Land Use Controls" means any restriction or control, which serves to protect human health and/or the environment, by limiting the use of and/or exposure to, any portion of a property, including water resources. These controls include but are not limited to:

1. Engineering controls for remedial actions directed toward containing or controlling the migration of contaminants through the environment. These include, but are not limited to, stormwater conveyance systems, slurry walls, liner systems, caps, leachate collection systems, pump and treat systems, and groundwater recovery systems.

2. Institutional controls which are legal or contractual restrictions on property use that remain effective after remediation is completed and are used to meet remediation levels. The term may include, but is not limited to, deed notations, deed restrictions and/or, water use restrictions, restrictive covenants, conservation easements, and limited development rights.

3. Water use restrictions which can be placed on the use of a particular water supply source that has been identified as being contaminated with hazardous substances or other contaminants in order to protect human health and the environment.

(bb) "Major Modification" means any modification that is not a minor modification.

(cc) "Minor Modification" means any administrative and/or general information changes, correction of typographical errors, changes in ownership and or operational control, and changes in the frequency of, or procedures for, monitoring, reporting or sampling by the applicant to provide for more frequent monitoring, reporting or sampling.

(dd) "Mitigation" means reducing to the extent possible or rectifying the adverse impact by repairing, rehabilitating, restoring, or limiting exposure to the affected environment.

(ee) "Noncarcinogen" is a chemical classification for the purposes of risk assessment as an agent for which there is either inadequate toxicological data or which is not likely to be a carcinogen based on an EPA weight-of-evidence classification system.

(ff) "Operation and Maintenance" means any action(s) required to operate and/or maintain the processes in place to minimize any potential exposures to environmental concerns on a property.

(gg) "Owner or Operator"

1. The definition includes the following:

(i) In the case of a facility, any person owning or operating such facility.

(ii) Any person who owned, operated, or otherwise controlled activities at a facility immediately prior to conveyance of title to a unit of state or local government or control of the facility due to bankruptcy, foreclosure, tax delinquency, or abandonment.

2. The definition does not include the following:

(i) A person who can show evidence of ownership, acted solely in a fiduciary capacity and who did not actively participate in the management, disposal, or release of hazardous wastes, hazardous constituents, or hazardous substances from the facility.

(ii) A unit of a state or local government which acquired ownership or control involuntarily through bankruptcy, tax delinquency, abandonment, or other circumstances in which the government involuntarily acquire title by virtue of its function as sovereign. This exclusion shall not apply to any state or local government which has caused or contributed to the release of hazardous wastes, hazardous constituents, or hazardous substances from the facility.

(hh) "Parent" has the same meaning as in 17 CFR 240.12b-2 (1 April 1996 Edition).

(ii) "Participant" means a person who has received confirmation of eligibility and has remitted payment of application fee.

(jj) "Person" means an individual, corporation, partnership, association, a governmental body, a municipal corporation or any other legal entity.

(kk) "Petroleum" means oil or petroleum of any kind and in any form, including, without limitation, crude oil or any fraction thereof, petroleum, gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, oil sludge, used oil, substances or additives utilized in the refining or blending of crude petroleum or petroleum stock, natural gas, natural gas liquids, liquefied natural gas, synthetic gas usable for fuel, and mixtures of natural gas and synthetic gas.

(ll) "Pollutant" includes but is not limited to dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste. [Note: Some materials that meet the definition of "pollutant" may not meet the criteria to be considered a solid waste, whether hazardous or nonhazardous.]

(mm) "Preexisting release" means a release, as that term is defined in 335-15-1-.02, which occurred prior to an applicant's application for a limitation of liability pursuant to 335-15-4-.02.

(nn) "Property" is synonymous with "facility" and includes any or all of the following:

1. Any land, building, structure, installation, equipment, pipe or pipeline, sewer or publicly owned treatment works, pipe into a sewer or publicly owned treatment works, well, pit, pond, lagoon, impoundment, ditch, landfill, or storage container.

2. Any site or area where a hazardous waste, hazardous constituent, hazardous substance or petroleum product has been deposited, discharged, stored, disposed of, placed, or has otherwise come to be located.

3. A parcel of land defined by the boundaries in the applicable deed.

(oo) "Prospective developer" means any person who desires to buy or sell a brownfield property for the purpose of developing or redeveloping that brownfield property and who did not cause or contribute to the contamination at the brownfield property.

(pp) "Prospective purchaser" means a person who intends to purchase a qualifying property.

(qq) "Qualifying property" means a property which meets the criteria of 335-15-2-.01(1).

(rr) "Relatives" means persons who are, or formerly were, related by marriage or by consanguinity.

(ss) "Release" means any intentional or unintentional act or omission resulting in the spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment, including without limitation, the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles, of any solid waste, hazardous waste, hazardous constituent, petroleum products, or hazardous substance.

(tt) "Remediation waste" means all solid and hazardous wastes, and all media (including groundwater, surface water, soils, and sediment) and debris that contain hazardous substances which are managed for implementation of the cleanup.

(uu) "Residential" means single family residences of one or more dwelling units, including accessory land, buildings or improvements incidental to such dwellings.

(vv) "Response Action" means those actions taken in the event of a release or threatened release of a hazardous waste, hazardous constituent, petroleum product, or hazardous substance into the environment to remove, or to prevent or minimize the release of hazardous waste, hazardous constituents, petroleum products, or hazardous substances so that they do not pose a threat to public health and/or the environment.

(ww) "Responsible person" means any person who has contributed or is contributing to a release of any hazardous waste, hazardous constituent, or hazardous substance at a property. This term specifically includes those persons described in §§107(a)(1) through 107(a)(4) of the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C., Section 9601, et seq. This term specifically excludes those persons described in §107(b) of the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C., Section 9601, et seq.

(xx) "Restricted use" means any use other than unrestricted residential use.

(yy) "Risk assessment" means the process used to determine the risk posed by contaminants that have been released into the environment at a site. The process includes a written site-specific evaluation, encompassing, but not limited to, the identification of the contaminants present in the environmental media, the assessment of exposure and exposure pathways, the assessment of the toxicity of the contaminants present, the characterization of risks to humans, and the characterization of the impacts or risks to the environment.

(zz) "Site" means any property or portion thereof, as agreed to and defined by the participant and the Department, which contains or may contain contaminants being addressed under this program.

(aaa) "Source" means the point of origin of a suspected contaminant.

(bbb) "Subsidiary" has the same meaning as in the 17 CFR 240.12b-2 (1 April 1996 Edition).

(ccc) "Third party" means one not a party to an agreement or to a transaction but who may have rights therein.

(ddd) "Unrestricted residential use" means the designation of acceptable future use at a site for any and all activities associated with residential use at which the remediation levels, based on either background or standard residential exposure factors, shall have been attained throughout the site in all media.

(eee) "Used oil" means any oil that has been refined from crude oil, or any synthetic oil, that has been used and as a result of such use, is contaminated by physical or chemical impurities.

(fff) "Upper-bound lifetime cancer risk level" means a conservative estimate of the probability of one excess cancer occurrence in a given number of exposed individuals. For example, a risk level of 1 x 10^-6 equates to the possibility of one additional cancer occurrence beyond the number of occurrences that would otherwise occur in one million exposed individuals, beyond the number of occurrences that would otherwise occur. Upper-bound lifetime cancer risk level is based on an assumption of continuous, lifetime exposure and is likely to overestimate true risk.

(ggg) "Voluntary Cleanup Plan" means any plan approved under 335-15-4-.04 that describes in sufficient detail those actions planned to satisfy the cleanup requirements for the qualifying property.

(hhh) "Voluntary Cleanup Report" means a final report of the cleanup of the entire facility in accordance with the specifications in the approved cleanup plan.

(iii) "Well" means any shaft or pit dug or bored into the earth, generally of a cylindrical form, and often walled with bricks or tubing to prevent the earth from caving in.

(jjj) "Voluntary Property Assessment Report" means a report of the assessment and findings from a Voluntary Property Assessment which may include a recommendation for applying cleanup standards to the property.

(kkk) "Well" means any shaft or pit dug or bored into the earth, generally of a cylindrical form, and often walled with bricks or tubing to prevent the earth from caving in.

Notes

Ala. Admin. Code r. 335-15-1-.02

New Rule: April 11, 2002; effective May 16, 2002. Amended: Filed October 21, 2004; effective November 25, 2004. Amended by Alabama Administrative Monthly Volume XXXVIII, Issue No. 05, February 28, 2020, eff. 4/13/2020. Amended by Alabama Administrative Monthly Volume XL, Issue No. 07, April 29, 2022, eff. 6/13/2022.

Authors: Fred A. Barnes; Keith N. West; Lawrence A. Norris; Stephen A. Cobb; Sonja B. Favors; Crystal L. Collins; Lynn T. Roper; M. Gavin Adams; Austin R. Pierce; Pamela L. Monaghan

Statutory Authority: Code of Ala. 1975, § 22-30E-3.