Current through Register Vol. XLI, No. 50, December 13, 2024
Section 22-2-2 - Definitions2.1. "Best Management Practices" or "BMP's" -- means sediment control measures, structural or nonstructural, used singly or in combination, to reduce soil runoff from land disturbances associated with commercial timber harvesting and as are adopted from time to time by the director, upon recommendation of the BMP Committee specified in W. Va. Code § 19-1B-7(h).2.2. "Certified Logger" -- means an individual engaged in the business of severing trees for commercial purposes who has successfully completed the program prescribed by the director to ensure competency in the safe conduct of timbering operations, in first aid, and in the use of BMP's.2.3. "Chief" -- means the Director of the Division of Water and Waste Management of the Department of Environmental Protection or his or her agent.2.4. "Commercial" -- means that which is done for a wage, fee, commission, agent or profit.2.5. "Compliance Order" -- means a written order of the director specifying how a situation that is contributing, or has the potential to contribute, to soil erosion or water pollution, be corrected; and further specifying a reasonable and practical number of days in which the corrective action(s) must be taken.2.6. "Conference Panel" -- means the entity comprised of those persons selected by the director and the chief, as specified in W. Va. Code § 19-1B-11-a, and who, upon the request of an aggrieved person or upon petition of the chief, meet to affirm, modify or vacate orders of the director relating to commercial timber harvesting.2.7. "Director" -- means the director, also termed the state administrative forester, of the West Virginia Division of Forestry or his or her agent.2.8. "Exempted Person" -- means a landowner who severs or removes, or hires or contracts with another to sever or remove standing trees from his or her own property having a gross sales value of $52,000 or less in any one calendar year; or anyone who is hired or contracted to sever or remove standing trees from the land of another having a gross sales value of $52,000 or less in any one calendar year.2.9 "Gross Sales Value" means the entire amount of money received by an exemption holder for all wood products harvested from the operation(s) at their respective points of sale.2.10. "Haul Road" -- means a road, other than roads built under an active permit to comply with other laws or regulations, constructed or used for the transportation of logs from a landing to a state road or highway.2.11. "Landing" -- means an area, integral to the logging operation, in or near a forest where logs are first accumulated and/or prepared for loading onto or into carriers for transportation to a wood-processing facility.2.12. "License" -- means a document approved by the director and supplied, upon application, to any qualified person engaged in the conduct of timbering operations, or the purchase of timber for harvesting, or the purchase of logs for resale or some combination thereof.2.13. "Log" -- means any portion of a tree which has been severed from the stump and delimbed.2.14. "Log Buyer" -- means any person who buys and/or barters for logs and who then resells some or all of the logs.2.15. "Notification of Timbering Operations" -- means supplying information about timbering operations to the director, at least 3 days prior to the commencement of operations, using a form designed and distributed by the director.2.16. "Operator" -- means any person who conducts timbering operations.2.17. "Person" -- means any individual or combination of individuals, partnership, corporation, company, society, association, firm, organization, or other business entity.2.18. "Skid Road" -- means a road over which trees and logs are carried or dragged from the point where severed to a landing.2.19 "Suspension Order" -- means a written order of the director that suspends a timbering operator from further operations, a timbering operation, or any part of a timbering operation in any part of the state until the corrective action mandated in the compliance order has been completed.2.20 "Timber Buyer" -- means any person who buys and/or barters for standing or down timber to be used in the manufacture of wood products, including sales where the landowner is paid a percentage of the sale of logs produced from the standing timber.2.21. "Timbering Operations" or the singular -- as defined in the W. Va. Code § 19-1B-3(e), includes all aspects of logging, including but not limited to severing and delimbing of trees, cutting of the delimbed tree into logs either at the point of severing or at a landing, the preparation of any skid and haul roads and the skidding or otherwise moving of logs to landings.2.22. "Water Pollution Control Act" -- means Article 11, Chapter 22, of the W. Va. Code or the successor citation.2.23. "Wood Products" -- materials consisting of, or developed from, the use of the hard fiber substance which makes up the greater part of the trunks and limbs of trees, including but not limited to, logs, veneer, mine timbers, posts, poles, pulpwood, chips and bark mulch.