5.02.020 Definitions

Acute Effects: any adverse health outcome resulting from short-term exposure to a toxic substance.

Administrator: the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Agricultural Water Supply Use: the use of water for irrigation.

Algae: simple plants organisms without roots, stems, or leaves that contain chlorophyll and are capable of photosynthesis.

Antidegradation: the three tiers of Antidegradation are as follows: Tier 1, maintains and protects existing uses and water quality conditions necessary to support such uses. Tier 1 requirements are applicable to all surface waters. Tier 2, maintains and protects "high quality" waters-water bodies where existing conditions are better than necessary to support CWA § 101(a)(2) "fishable/swimmable" uses. Tier 3, maintains and protects water quality in Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRWs). Except for certain temporary changes, water quality cannot be lowered in such waters. ONRWs generally include the highest quality waters of the United States.

Aquatic Life: any animal or plant, such as fish, shellfish and mammals, which lives at least part of their life cycle in the water.

Attainable Use: a use of surface water that has the quality and all other characteristics necessary to support and maintain the use or which would support and maintain the use after the implementation of water quality standards as set forth in or promulgated pursuant to this Code.

Best Management Practices: practices undertaken to control, restrict, and diminish nonpoint sources of pollution which are consistent with the purposes of the WQS; and measures, including but not limited to structural measures, that are determined to be the most effective and practical means of preventing or reducing pollution from nonpoint sources.

Bioaccumulation: the process whereby slowly metabolized or excreted substances increase in concentration in living organisms as they take in polluted air, water, or food.

Biological Criteria: the numeric values or narrative expressions that describe the biological integrity or aquatic communities inhabiting waters of a given designated aquatic life use. Biological criteria serve as an index of aquatic community health.

Ceremonial and Spiritual Water Use: the use of water for spiritual and cultural practices which involve primary contact. This shall include uses of Tribal Surface Waters of a water body to fulfill cultural, traditional, spiritual, or religious needs of the Tribe or its members.

cfs: cubic feet per second.

cfu: colony forming units; expressed as cfu per 100 milliliters.

Chronic Toxicity: a long-term adverse effect to an organism (when compared to the life span of the organism) caused by or related to changes in feeding, growth, metabolism, reproduction, a pollutant, genetic mutation, etc. Short-term test methods for detecting chronic toxicity may be used to make inferences about chronic toxicity.

Cold Water Fishery: a stream reach, lake, or impoundment where the water temperature and other characteristics are suitable for the support of cold water fish.

Color: the true color of the water from which turbidity has been removed, or the apparent color of the water, including the color due to substances in solution or to suspended matter.

Constructed Wetland: a wetland intentionally created from non-wetland sites for the sole purpose of wastewater or storm water treatment.

Criteria: are elements of Tribal water quality standards, expressed as constituent concentrations, levels, or narrative statements, representing a quality of water that supports a particular use. When criteria are met, water quality will generally protect the designated use.

Cultural Use: Cultural and ceremonial uses that utilize tribal water resources.

CWA: the Federal Clean Water Act (33 USC 1251 et seq.), as mentioned.

Designated Uses: those water uses identified by the Water Quality Standards that must be achieved and maintained as required under the Clean Water Act. Uses can include cold water fisheries, public water supply, recreation, and cultural/ceremonial uses.

Division: the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, Environment Division.

Director: the director of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe Environment Division.

Dissolved Oxygen or DO: the amount of oxygen dissolved in water or available for biochemical activity in water.

Effluent: the water and the quantities, rates, and concentrations of chemical, physical, biological, and other constituents discharged from a point source.

EPA: United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Existing Uses: those uses actually attained by a water body on or after November 28, 1975 whether or not they are included in the water quality standards.

Fish: all species of fish and shellfish and their eggs, offspring, and spawn.

Fishery: the complex communities of fishes and shellfishes dependent on adequate water quality, quantity, and habitat of water body; inclusive of cold water and warm water fisheries.

Flow: Volume of water passing through the cross sectional area of a stream (or river) per unit volume of time.

Groundwater: all subsurface water situated wholly or partly within or bordering upon the exterior boundaries of the Territory.

Hardness: measure of the calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) and other divalent cations. For the purpose of these standards, hardness is measured in milligrams per liter (mg/l) and generalized as calcium carbonate (CaCO3).

Highest Attainable Use: is the modified aquatic life, wildlife, or recreation use that is both closest to the uses specified in section 101(a)(2) of the Act and attainable; based on the evaluation of the factor(s) in §131.10(g) that preclude(s) attainment of the use and any other information or analyses that were used to evaluate attainability. There is no required highest attainable use where the Tribe demonstrates the relevant use specified in section 101(a)(2) of the Act and sub-categories of such a use are not attainable.

Indigenous: a species having originated in and produced, growing, or living in a particular region or environment.

Intermittent Stream: a stream or stream reach that flows only when receiving water directly from springs, melting snow, or localized precipitation.

Milligrams per Liter (mg/l): the concentration at which one milligram is contained in a volume of one (1) liter.

Mixing Zone: an area where an effluent discharge undergoes initial dilution and is extended to cover the secondary mixing in the ambient water body. A mixing zone is an allocated impact zone where numeric water quality criteria can be exceeded but acutely toxic conditions are prevented from occurring.

NPDES Permit: a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit issued pursuant to Section 402 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251-1387.

Narrative Standards: standards or criteria expressed in words rather than numbers.

Natural Background: the ambient water quality characteristics of waters void of human influence

Nonpoint Source Pollution: pollution conveyed to a water body, above ground or below, by rainfall and snowmelt. The origin of non-point source pollution can be a single activity, i.e. agriculture, livestock, construction, and parking lot runoff, or from regional actions like stream erosion.

Nutrient: Any substance assimilated by living things that promotes growth. The term is generally applied to nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater, but is also applied to other essential and trace elements.

Pathogen Indicator Bacteria: surrogates used to measure the potential presence of fecal material and associated fecal pathogens. Indicator bacteria such as E. coli and enterococci are part of the intestinal flora of warm-blooded animals.

Pathogenic Bacteria and Viruses: bacteria and viruses capable of causing disease in humans.

Perennial Stream: a stream or stream reach that flows continuously throughout the year, the upper surface of which is generally lower than the water table of the region adjoining the stream.

Person: an individual, trust, firm, association, partnership, political subdivision, government agency, municipality, industry, public or private corporation, or any other entity whatsoever.

Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxics: are chemicals of particular concern for toxic effects, persistence in the environment, capable of long range transport, bioaccumulation in human and animal tissue, and potential for significant impacts on human health and ecosystems.

Point Source: 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, but not including return flows from agricultural irrigation.

Pollutant: dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological wastes, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into water.

Pollutant Minimization Program: is a structured set of activities to improve processes and pollutant controls that will prevent and reduce pollutant loadings.

Pollution: The presence in the environment of conditions and/or pollutants in quantities of characteristics that are or may be injurious to human, plant or animal life or to property or that unreasonable interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property throughout such areas of the reservation as shall be affected thereby.

Potable Water: water that is safe for human consumption.

Primary Contact Recreation: the recreational use of a stream, river, lake, or impoundment involving prolonged contact and the risk of incidental ingestion of water in quantities sufficient to pose a health hazard; including but not limited to swimming, skin diving and water skiing.

Reach: a discrete section or sample population of a water body.

Regulations: the water quality standards and regulations promulgated here by the Tribe.

Secondary Contact Recreation: recreational uses such as boating and fishing that involve minor contact with water.

States: the fifty (50) states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Thermal Discharge: heated water discharges with the potential to alter the growth and existence of aquatic organisms.

Territory: all lands within the boundaries of the 1796 Treaty and all other lands over which the tribe has jurisdiction.

Toxic: the effect of substances upon exposure (ingestion, inhalation, or assimilation) either directly from the environment or through the food chains, that will, on the basis of information available to the Environment Division, cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological malfunctions, including in reproduction, or physical deformation, in such organisms or their offspring.

Tribe: the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe.

Tribal Surface Water: all water above the surface of the ground situated wholly or partly within or bordering upon the exterior boundaries of the Territory, including but not limited to lakes, ponds, artificial impoundments, streams, stream reaches, rivers, springs, seeps, and wetlands.

Turbidity: the extent to which light penetration in water is inhibited by the presence of suspended solids, expressed in nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) and measured with a properly calibrated instrument.

Use Attainability Analysis: a structured scientific assessment of the factors affecting the attainment of the various water uses, including but not limited to physical, chemical, biological, and economic factors such as those referred to in 40 C.F.R. §131.10(g).

Warm Water Fishery: a Tribal Surface Water which the water temperature and other characteristics are suitable for the support of warm water fish.

Waste Treatment: the activities and technological controls required to ensure that discharges of waste do not impair existing Tribal Water Quality Standards.

Water Quality Standards: the provisions of tribal law designating uses for the Tribal Surface Waters and specifying water quality criteria for such water based upon such uses, which standards are intended to protect the public health and welfare, protect Tribal treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather, enhance the quality of water on the Territory, and serve the purposes of the Clean Water Act.

Water Quality Standards Variance (WQS variance): is a time-limited designated use and criterion for a specific pollutant(s) or water quality parameter(s) that reflect the highest attainable condition during the term of the WQS variance.

Wildlife: any form of animal life living wild on the Territories, including but not limited to all wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians and their eggs, offspring and spawn.

Zone of Passage: the portion of the receiving water outside the mixing zone.