Section 250-RICR-150-05-3.7 - DefinitionsA. As used in these rules, the following terms shall, where the context permits, be construed as follows: 1. "Annular space seal" means the material placed above the top of the filter pack or the filter pack seal up to the ground surface seal and between the well casing and the adjacent formation.2. "Aquifer" means a geologic formation, group of formations, or part of a formation that contains sufficient saturated, permeable material to yield significant quantities of water to wells and springs.3. "Bedrock" means solid rock, commonly called ledge, which forms the earth's crust, including fracture zones within said rock.4. "Best management practices" means schedules of activities, prohibitions of practices, maintenance procedures, and other management practices designed to prevent or reduce the degradation of the state's groundwater to the maximum extent possible.5. "Community water supply well" means a well that serves a community water system.6. "Community water system" means a public water system which serves at least 15 service connections used by year-round residents or regularly serves at least 25 year-round residents.7. "Degradation" means a deterioration or decline in groundwater quality.8. "Department" means the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management or its successor.9. "Direct push well" means a well that is advanced into the subsurface without drilling.10. "Director" means the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management or the Director's designee.11. "Discharge to groundwater" means the intentional, negligent, accidental, or other release of any pollutant onto the land surface in a location where it may enter the groundwater of the state, or such release of any pollutant beneath the land surface.12. "Effluent" means liquid that is discharged from a facility.13. "Emergency response" means any action undertaken immediately following the discovery of a release in order to completely or partially contain, clean up or treat the released material to prevent an immediate or substantial threat or risk of acute or chronic adverse effect on human health or to prevent an immediate or substantial significant adverse impact to the environment.14. "Facility" means any parcel of real estate or a contiguous series or parcels of real estate together with any and all structures, facility components, improvements, fixtures and other appurtenances located therein or thereon which constitutes a distinct geographic unit.15. "Filter pack" means the sand, gravel, or both placed in direct contact with the well screen.16. "Filter pack seal" means the sealing material placed in the annular space above the filter pack and below the annular space seal to prevent the migration of annular space sealant into the filter pack.17. "Groundwater" means water found underground which completely fills the open spaces between particles of sediment and within rock formations.18. "Groundwater quality classification" means the categorization of groundwater as usable for particular purposes on the basis of its physical, chemical, and hydrogeologic characteristics; also, the particular class (GAA, GA, GB, or GC) assigned to a particular volume of groundwater within specific geographic boundaries.19. "Groundwater quality standards" means concentrations of specific chemical, biological, and radiological constituents and narrative statements which describe the quality of groundwater which shall be met in a particular groundwater quality classification.20. "Groundwater reservoirs" means those stratified drift deposits having a saturated thickness greater than or equal to 40 feet and a transmissivity greater than or equal to 4000 feet squared per day which have been designated by the Director to be potentially significant sources of water.21. "Grout" means a low permeability material consisting of bentonite, neat cement or a neat cement-bentonite mixture.22. "Hazardous waste" means hazardous waste as defined in the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Rules and Regulations for Hazardous Waste Management Part 140-10-1 of this Title.23. "Hydraulic conductivity" means a measure of the ability of an aquifer to transmit a fluid; it is expressed as the volume of water at the existing kinematic viscosity that will move in a unit time under a unit hydraulic gradient through a unit area measured at right angles to the direction of flow.24. "Licensed solid waste landfill" means any solid waste disposal facility consisting in whole or in part of a landfill, which facility is operating pursuant to a valid department license issued pursuant to a final action of the Director as to which all applicable appeals periods have expired.25. "Monitoring well" means a well that is specifically located, designed, constructed, and emplaced to sample groundwater quality; the monitoring well may also be used to measure water table elevations.26. "Monitoring well abandonment" means to remove a monitoring well from service in such a manner that vertical movement of water within the well bore and within the annular space surrounding the well casing is effectively and permanently prevented.27. "Neat cement" means a mixture of Portland cement (American Society of Testing Materials C150 Standard Specification for Portland Cement, incorporated above at § 3.6(A) of this Part) and water in the proportion of 5 to 6 gallons of clean water per bag (94 pounds or 1 cubic foot).28. "Neat cement-bentonite mixture" means a mixture of 6 to 7 gallons of water per 94-pound bag of Portland cement (American Society of Testing Materials C150 Standard Specification for Portland Cement, incorporated above at § 3.6(A) of this Part) with up to 10% (by dry weight of cement) of unaltered dry bentonite powder added after the initial mixing of cement and water.29. "Non-aqueous phase liquid" means any pollutant that is present as a separate phase liquid, including, but not limited to sheens.30. "Non-community water supply well" means a well that serves a noncommunity water system.31. "Non-community water system" means a public water system that is not a community water system.32. "Non-transient non-community water supply well" means a well that serves a non-transient non-community water system.33. "Non-transient non-community water system" means a non-community water system that regularly services at least 25 of the same persons over six months per year.34. "Onsite wastewater treatment system" means any system of piping, tanks, dispersal areas, alternative toilets or other facilities designed to function as a unit to convey, store, treat or disperse wastewater by means other than discharge into a public sewer system. 35. "Operator" means any person or persons having control or having legal responsibility for operating or maintaining any facility, which is subject to these rules.36. "Owner" means any person who holds exclusive or joint title to, or lawful possession of real or personal property, which is subject to these rules.37. "Person" means an individual, trust, firm, joint stock company, corporation (including a quasi-governmental corporation), partnership, association, syndicate, municipality, municipal or state agency, fire district, club, nonprofit agency, or any subdivision, commission, department, bureau, agency or department of state or federal government (including quasi-governmental corporation), or any interstate or international body, or any agent or employee thereof.38. "Petroleum" means crude oil, any fraction of crude oil, any substance refined or derived from crude oil, or any mixture thereof, including, but not limited to, gasoline, petroleum solvents, kerosene, aviation fuels, diesel oils, fuel oils, waste oils, lubricants, tar and asphalt.39. "Piezometer" means a well with a short screen that allows measurement of the water level at a particular depth in the aquifer.40. "Pollutant" means any material or effluent which may alter the chemical, physical, biological, or radiological characteristics and/or integrity of water, including but 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, cellar dirt or industrial, municipal, agricultural, or other waste or material, petroleum or petroleum products, including but not limited to oil.41. "Pollutant discharge zone" means a departmentally designated, threedimensional zone within which the pollutant concentrations resulting from an active discharge to groundwater are allowed to be greater than the groundwater quality standards.42. "Pollution" means the man-made or man-induced alteration of the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological integrity of water.43. "Preventive action limit" means a concentration of a substance that is equal to 50% of the numerical groundwater quality standard.44. "Private well" means a well that is established to meet all or part of a person's potable water needs provided said well does not supply a public water system.45. "Public water system" means a system for the provision to the public of piped water for human consumption, provided such a system has at least 15 service connections or regularly serves an average of at least 25 individuals daily at least 60 days out of the year; and shall include all sources and facilities involved in collecting, treating, storing, and distributing the water.46. "Public well" means a well that serves a public water system.47. "Recharge area" means the land surface from which water is added to the zone of saturation. The recharge area for a particular well or aquifer, for instance, is that land surface from which water moves to the well or aquifer or may move to the well or aquifer under certain hydraulic conditions.48. "Release" means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing of any pollutant onto or below the land surface. For purposes of these Rules, release also includes any storage, disposal, or abandonment of any substance or material in a manner that presents a substantial threat of release as herein defined.49. "Remediation" means prevention and control of pollutant migration to, within, or from the groundwater or the removal of a pollutant from the groundwater.50. "Residual zone" means a departmentally designated, three-dimensional zone within which the pollutant concentrations remaining in the groundwater after remediation activities are allowed to be greater than the groundwater quality standards.51. "Sanitary sewage" means any human or animal excremental liquid or substance, any putrescible animal or vegetable matter or any garbage and filth, including, but not limited to, any gray water or black water discharged from toilets, washing machines, sinks and dishwashers as well as the content of septic tanks, cesspools, or privies.52. "Saturated thickness" means the thickness of an aquifer measured from the water table to an essentially impermeable boundary; such boundary is typically taken to be the top of the bedrock surface.53. "Saturated zone" means the subsurface zone in which all open spaces are filled with water.54. "Sludge" means residue, whether partially solid or solid, treated or untreated, resulting from the treatment of sewage, including, without limitation, such residues from the cleaning of sewers, by processes, such as settling, flotation, filtration and centrifugation, and shall not meet the criteria for a hazardous waste as found in the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Rules and Regulations for Hazardous Waste Management, Part 140-10-1 of this Title.55. "Sole source aquifer" means an aquifer designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as the sole or principal source of drinking water for the area above the aquifer and including those lands where the population served by the aquifer live; that is, an aquifer which is needed to supply 50% or more of the drinking water for that area and for which there are no reasonably available alternative sources should the aquifer become polluted.56. "Solid waste" means solid waste as defined in the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Solid Waste Regulations No.1 through No.8 Parts 140-05-1 through 8 of this Title; and which shall include garbage, refuse and other discarded solid materials generated by residential, institutional, commercial, industrial and agricultural sources but does not include solids or dissolved materials in domestic sewage or sewage sludge, nor does it include hazardous waste. Solid waste shall also include non-hazardous liquid, semi-solid, and containerized gaseous waste.57. "Static water table" means the water table under natural, non-pumping conditions.58. "Stratified drift" means predominantly sorted sediments deposited in layers by meltwater from a glacier.59. "Till" means predominantly unsorted, unstratified sediments deposited directly by a glacier.60. "Transient non-community water supply well" means a well that serves a transient non-community water system.61. "Transient non-community water system" means a non-community water system that does not regularly serve at least 25 of the same persons over 6 months per year.62. "Transmissivity" means a measure of the ability of an aquifer to transmit a fluid through a unit volume of the aquifer. It can be quantified as the hydraulic conductivity multiplied by the saturated thickness.63. "Unconfined aquifer" means an aquifer that is not under pressure beneath a relatively impermeable layer. The groundwater in an unconfined aquifer is under atmospheric pressure, and its upper surface is the water table.64. "Watercourse" means any river, stream, brook, pond, lake, swamp, marsh, bog, fen, wet meadow, area subject to storm flowage, or any other standing or flowing body of water, including such watercourses that may be affected by the tides.65. "Water table" means the upper surface of the saturated zone in an unconfined aquifer.66. "Well" means a bored, drilled, or driven shaft or a dug hole, with a depth that is greater than its largest surface dimension, through which groundwater flows, has flowed, or may flow under natural or induced pressure.67. "Wellhead protection area" means the critical portion of a three dimensional zone surrounding a public well or wellfield through which water will move toward and reach such well or wellfield as designated by the Director.250 R.I. Code R. 250-RICR-150-05-3.7
Adopted effective 1/9/2019
Amended effective 12/28/2023