Author: Buy Khmer Book

Small Quantity Generators: A generator who generates less than 2,200 pounds of hazardous waste in a calendar month.

Slurry: A watery mixture of insoluble matter resulting from some pollution control techniques.

Sludge: A semi-solid residue from any of a number of air or water treatment processes. Sludge can be a hazardous waste.

Significant Noncompliance: Violations by point source dischargers of sufficient magnitude or duration to be a regulatory priority.

Sharps: Hypodermic needles, syringes (with or without the attached needle), Pasteur pipettes, scalpel blades, blood vials, needles with attached tubing, and culture dishes used in animal or human patient care or treatment, or in medical, research or industrial laboratories. Also included are other types of broken or unbroken glassware that were in contact with infectious agents, such as used slides and cover slips, and unused hypodermic and suture needles, syringes, and scalpel blades.

Sewage Treatment Plants: A plant used for treatment of domestic sewage. Often used synonymously with wastewater treatment plant.

Septic Tank: An underground storage tank and treatment device for wastes from homes not connected to a sewer line. Waste goes directly from the home to the tank. The septic tank is a component of the septic system.

Septic System: An on-site system designed to treat and dispose of domestic sewage. A typical septic system consists of a tank that receives waste from a residence or business and a system of trenches or beds in the soil for disposal of the liquid effluent that remains after decomposition of the solids by bacteria in the tank. The sludge remaining in the septic tank must be pumped out periodically.

Semi Volatile Organic Compound (SVOC): Organic compounds that volatilize slowly at standard temperature (20 degrees C and 1 atm pressure).

Self-Monitoring Report Form (SMRF): Forms filled out to fulfill specific monitoring and reporting requirements as set forth by the facility’s aquifer protection permit or reuse permit.

Sediment: Topsoil, sand, and minerals washed from the land into water, usually after rain or snow melt.

Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT): Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources. Mexico’s environmental and natural resources protection agency. It is considered the counterpart to the U.S. EPA.

Secondary Treatment: A wastewater treatment process used to convert dissolved or suspended materials into a form more readily separated from the water being treated.

Scrubber: An air pollution device that uses a spray of water or reactant or a dry process to trap pollutants in emissions.

Scattering (of light): An interaction of a light wave with an object like tiny particles of dust or soot, that cause the light to be redirected.

Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA): Main federal law that ensures the quality of the country’s drinking water. Under SDWA, the EPA sets standards for drinking water quality and oversees the states, localities, and water suppliers who implement those standards.

Run Habitat: A stream segment where there is moderate water velocity that does not break the surface tension of the water and does not produce breaking wavelets that turn the surface water into white water

Risk Assessment: A scientific evaluation of the probability of harm resulting from exposure to a hazardous substances. The contaminant exposure pathways examined are inhalation (breathing the contaminant), ingestion (drinking/eating contaminant), and dermal (skin having contact with contaminant).

Riparian Habitat: Areas adjacent to rivers and streams with a differing density, diversity, and productivity of plant and animal species relative to nearby uplands

Rip Rap: A layer of man-made hard, durable material for bank protection and stabilization usually consisting of rock or stone.

Riffle Habitat: A stream segment where moderate water velocity and substrate roughness produce moderately turbulent conditions that break the surface tension of the water and may produce breaking wavelets that turn the surface water into white water.

Reverse Osmosis: A treatment process used in drinking water systems by adding pressure to force water through a semi-permeable membrane. Reverse osmosis removes salinity and most drinking water contaminants and produces a waste stream of highly saline water. Also used in wastewater treatment.

Retention Pond: Temporary containment for a material in an area where it can be treated for proper disposal.

Responsiveness Summary: A summary of oral and written comments (and ADEQ responses to those comments) received during the public comment period.

Responsible Party (RP): A party (individual, corporation) identified by state or federal authorities as liable for cleanup costs at a contaminated site.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA): The primary federal act that manages and controls the formation, storage, release, and permitting of hazardous substances and wastes. Primarily applied to the industrial and manufacturing sectors.

Reportable Quantity: Quantity of a hazardous substance that triggers reports under CERCLA. If a substance exceeds its RQ, the release must be reported to the National Response Center, the SERC, and community emergency coordinators for areas likely to be affected.

Renewable Energy: Electricity supplied from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, geothermal, hydropower, and various forms of biomass. These energy sources are considered renewable sources because they are continuously replenished on the earth.

Removal Action: An immediate, short-term cleanup action to address a release or threatened release of hazardous substances. This action is initiated to reduce or eliminate an immediate threat to public health and/or the environment.

Remediation: Cleanup or other methods used to remove or contain a toxic spill or hazardous materials.

Remedial Objective (RO): Established remedial goals for the current and reasonably foreseeable uses of lands and waters of the state that have been or are threatened to be affected by a release of hazardous substance..

Remedial Investigation (RI): Establishes the nature and extent of the contamination and the sources; identifies current and potential impacts to public health, welfare, and the environment; identifies current and reasonable foreseeable uses of land and waters of the state; and obtains and evaluates any information necessary for identification and comparison of alternative remedial actions.

Remedial Action: Any action taken to investigate, monitor, assess and evaluate the release or threat of release of hazardous substances or contaminants to the environment. It may also refer to the actual “cleanup” of the environment by various removal, treatment, monitored remediation, or corrective actions. The term cleanup is sometimes used interchangeably with the terms remedial action, removal action, response action, remedy, remediation, or corrective action.

Release: A release occurs when a hazardous substance goes from a controlled condition (for example, inside a truck, barrel, storage tank, or landfill) to an uncontrolled condition in the air, water, or land.

Recycling: The process by which salvaged materials become usable products. Specifically, the reuse of specific consumer or industrial items in order to conserve scarce materials, reduce pollution and littering and generally improve the condition of the environment.

Record of Decision (ROD): A legal document that announces and explains the cleanup methods ADEQ will use at a Superfund/WQARF site. The ROD is based on information and technical analysis generated during the remedial investigation and feasibility study, and in consideration of comments received during the public comment record for the proposed remedial action plan.

Reclaimed Water: Former wastewater that is treated to remove solids and impurities in compliance with standards in regulation, which may then be used for agriculture, landscape irrigation, recharge of groundwater aquifers, and power generation supplies, industrial and other uses.

Recharge: The process by which water is added to a zone of saturation, usually by percolation from the soil surface, like the recharge to an aquifer.

Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT): Control technology that is reasonably available, and both technologically and economically feasible. Usually applied to existing sources in nonattainment areas; in most cases is less stringent than new source performance standards.

Radon: A common radioactive gas emitted from ordinary soils and rock. Radon has no smell, taste or color and can seep into homes, building up to dangerous levels if there is not enough ventilation. Exposure to high levels of radon gas over a long period of time increases the risk of developing lung cancer.

Radionuclide: Radioactive particle, man-made (anthropogenic) or natural, with a distinct atomic weight number. Radionuclides can have a long life as a soil or water pollutant.

Radioactive Waste: Any waste that emits energy as rays, waves, streams or energetic particles. Radioactive materials are often mixed with hazardous waste from nuclear reactors, research institutions, or hospitals.

Pump and Treat: A common method for cleaning up groundwater using pumps to bring polluted groundwater to the surface where it can be treated by various methods.

Public Water System (PWS): Refers to water systems which provide water to at least 15 service connections used by year-round residents or which provide water to at least 25 year-round residents, thus falling under the drinking water safety requirements of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

Public Comment Period: A period during which the public can formally review and comment on various documents and ADEQ actions.

Production Well: A well specifically designed to pump groundwater for domestic or municipal use (to differentiate from a monitoring well).

Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente (PROFEPA): Attorney General for Environmental Protection. A federal agency in Mexico that is responsible for inspections, compliance, and enforcement actions for environmental and natural resources protection.

Procuraduría Ambiental del Estado de Sonora (PROAES): State of Sonora Attorney General for the Environment. A separate agency in Sonora that conducts inspections and enforcement actions applied to air and waste regulatory requirements.

Primary Treatment: The removal of particulate materials from domestic wastewater, usually done by allowing the solid materials to settle as a result of gravity.

Prevention of significant deterioration (PSD): A construction air pollution permitting program designed to ensure air quality does not degrade beyond the national ambient air quality standard levels or beyond specified incremental amounts above a baseline level. It also ensures that the best available control technology is applied to major stationary sources and major modifications for regulated pollutants, and consideration of soils, vegetation and visibility in the permitting process.

Preliminary Investigation: Refers to the process of collecting and reviewing available information about a known or suspected hazardous waste site or release.

Potentially Responsible Party (PRP): A party (individual, corporation) identified by state or federal authorities as potentially liable for cleanup costs at a contaminated site.

Potable: Water of sufficient quality to serve as drinking water

Portable Particulate Monitor (PPM): A network of monitors across Arizona operated by ADEQ that record hourly average concentrations of Particulate Matter-2.5. The monitors can be deployed to measure PM-2.5 levels generated by wildfires and prescribed burns.

Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB): A group of toxic, persistent chemicals that once were used in high voltage electrical transformers because they conducted heat well while being fire resistant and good electrical insulators. These contaminants are typically generated from metal degreasing, printed circuit board cleaning, gasoline, and wood preserving processes

Pollution Prevention (P2): A national policy created by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 to have pollution prevented or reduced at the source wherever possible and also expand the Toxics Release Inventory. The Pollution Prevention Act focused industry, government, and public attention on reducing the amount of pollution through cost-effective changes in production, operation, and raw materials use

Point Source: Refers to a specific, identifiable source from which waste or pollution is released into the environment.

Plume: A well-defined area of contamination in groundwater, soil or the air downstream from the source.

pH: A measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline.

Pesticides: Any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest, or intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Equipment worn to minimize exposure to serious workplace injuries and illnesses. These injuries and illnesses may result from contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other workplace hazards.

Permit: An authorization, license, or equivalent control document issued by ADEQ to implement the requirements of an environmental regulation, usually to limit the amount of pollutants discharged into the environment. For example, a permit to operate a wastewater treatment plant.

ermeability: The degree to which groundwater can move freely through the rocks and soil of an aquifer, indicative of the degree to which pores and fractures in rocks are actually interconnected. A typical measure of permeability is the number of gallons of water that can move through a cross section of one square foot.

Perennial Water:A surface water that flows continuously throughout the year.

Percolation: The movement under the force of gravity of water downward and radially through subsurface soil layers to the water table. In septic tank installations, a percolation test is used to determine the size of trench needed for adequate disposal of wastewater.

Perchloroethene (also known as tetrachloroethylene) (PCE): Also called tetrachloroethene, PCE, or perc. It is a manufactured chemical widely used for dry cleaning and metal degreasing.

Perchlorate: A manufactured salt that is found in rocket fuels, explosives, flares, fireworks, some bleach products, and some herbicides. Perchlorate can impair thyroid function.

Perched Aquifer: A relatively small, localized aquifer that lies above the regional aquifer and is underlain by a confining layer. Perched aquifers may be formed when the groundwater table drops and water is trapped above a confining layer. They are usually discontinuous and are not usually sources for drinking water.

Pathway: The means for a contaminant to enter the body or plant life. Examples are ingestion (eating or drinking), inhalation (breathing), or transdermal (absorption through the skin). If no pathway exists, then exposure to a contaminant is not possible.

Pathogens: Microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, or parasites that can cause disease in humans, animals and plants.

Parts Per Billion (ppb)/Parts Per MillionMillion (ppm): Units commonly used to express contamination ratios, as in establishing the maximum permissible amount of a contaminant in water, land, or air.

Particulate Matter-2.5 (PM_2.5): Particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or less. A major pollutant source, it is generated by smoke from wildfires, prescribed burns and fireplace activity.

Particulate Matter-10 (PM₁₀): Dust, particulate matter measuring 10 microns or less. A dust particle of 10 microns is one-seventh the width of a human hair.

Particulate Matter (Inhalable): Any finely divided airborne solid or liquid material with a diameter smaller than 10 micrometers while it is in the air.

Particulate matter: Any finely divided airborne solid or liquid material with a diameter smaller than 100 micrometers while it is in the air. Examples of particulate matter include dust, smoke, soot, pollen and soil particles.

Partial-Body Contact: The recreational use of a surface water that may cause the human body to come into direct contact with the water, but normally not to the point of complete submergence (for example, wading or boating). The use is such that ingestion of the water is not likely and sensitive body organs, such as the eyes, ears, or nose, will not normally be exposed to direct contact with the water.

Ozone Layer: The thin protective layer of gas 10 kilometers to 50 kilometers above the earth that acts as a filter for ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. High UV levels can lead to skin cancer and cataracts and affect the growth of plants.

Ozone: a nearly colorless gas, that appears blue at high concentrations. It is formed in the reaction between atomic oxygen and molecular oxygen. Ozone, produced by photochemical reactions (i.e., sunlight), is found at all altitudes in the atmosphere. Ozone is a strong disinfectant that is sometimes used in drinking water and sewage treatment.

Oxidation: The chemical addition of oxygen to break down pollutants or organic waste; e.g., destruction of chemicals such as cyanides, phenols, and organic sulfur compounds in sewage by bacterial and chemical means.

Overdraft: A condition that occurs in a groundwater basin when pumping exceeds recharge over an extended period of time.

Outstanding Arizona Water: A designated section of surface water by the ADEQ director that affords it the highest protection under the U.S. Clean Water Act.

Outflow: The outward flow of air from a thunderstorm associated with gusty and erratic winds that can result in blowing dust. An outflow is most common during the North American Monsoon season.

Outfall: The place where effluent is discharged into receiving waters.

Osmosis: The passage of a liquid from a weak solution to a more concentrated solution across a semipermeable membrane that allows passage of the solvent (water) but not the dissolved solids.

Organismo Operador de Agua Potable, Alcantarillado y Saneamiento (OOMAPAS): The authority for drinking water, sewerage and sanitation operations in Mexico. Entity responsible for operational aspects of drinking water and wastewater functions in Mexican municipal governments.

Organic Compounds: Carbon-based compounds (also containing oxygen, hydrogen, or nitrogen) most commonly associated with living organisms  like proteins, sugars and cellulose.

Operator Certificate: Certification of operators of community and nontransient noncommunity water systems, asbestos specialists, pesticide applicators, hazardous waste transporters, and other such specialists as required by the EPA or ADEQ implementing an EPA-approved program.

Operation and Maintenance (O&M): 1. Activities conducted after a Superfund site action is completed to ensure that the action is effective;  2. Actions taken after construction to ensure that facilities constructed to treat wastewater will be properly operated and maintained to achieve normative efficiency levels and prescribed effluent limitations in an optimum manner; 3. On-going asbestos management plan in a school or other public building, including regular inspections, various methods of maintaining asbestos in place, and removal when necessary.