Senate Bill No. 473
(By Senator Humphreys)
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[Introduced February 21, 1994; referred to the Committee
.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section two, article five-f, chapter
twenty of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to changing the
definition of commercial recycler to exempt recycling
facilities operated by solid waste authorities from certain
permit requirements.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section two, article five-f, chapter twenty of the code
of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 5F. SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT.
§20-5F-2. Definitions.
Unless the context clearly requires a different meaning, as
used in this article the terms:
(a) "Approved solid waste facility" means a solid waste
facility or practice which has a valid permit under this article.
(b) "Backhauling" means the practice of using the samecontainer to transport solid waste and to transport any substance
or material used as food by humans, animals raised for human
consumption or reusable item which may be refilled with any
substance or material used as food by humans.
(c) "Chief" means the chief of the office of waste
management of the division of environmental protection.
(d) "Commercial recycler" means any person, corporation or
business entity whose operation involves the mechanical
separation of materials for the purpose of reselling or recycling
at least seventy percent by weight of the materials coming into
the commercial recycling facility, but does not include recycling
facilities operated by solid waste authorities.
(e) "Municipal solid waste incineration" means the burning
of any solid waste collected by any municipal or residential
solid waste disposal company.
(f) "Commercial solid waste facility" means any solid waste
facility which accepts solid waste generated by sources other
than the owner or operator of the facility and shall not include
an approved solid waste facility owned and operated by a person
for the sole purpose of disposing of solid wastes created by that
person or such person and other persons on a cost-sharing or
nonprofit basis and shall not include land upon which reused or
recycled materials are legitimately applied for structural fill,
road base, mine reclamation and similar applications.
(g) "Division" means the division of environmental
protection.
(h) "Director" means the director of the division of
environmental protection.
(i) "Open dump" means any solid waste disposal which does
not have a permit under this article, or is in violation of state
law, or where solid waste is disposed in a manner that does not
protect the environment.
(j) "Person" or "persons" mean any industrial user, public
or private corporation, institution, association, firm or company
organized or existing under the laws of this or any other state
or country; state of West Virginia; governmental agency,
including federal facilities; political subdivision; county
commission; municipal corporation; industry; sanitary district;
public service district; drainage district; soil conservation
district; watershed improvement district; partnership; trust;
estate; person or individual; group of persons or individuals
acting individually or as a group; or any legal entity whatever.
(k) "Sludge" means any solid, semisolid, residue or
precipitate, separated from or created by a municipal, commercial
or industrial waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant
or air pollution control facility or any other such waste having
similar origin.
(l) "Solid waste" means any garbage, paper, litter, refuse,
cans, bottles, waste processed for the express purpose of
incineration; sludge from a waste treatment plant; water supply
treatment plant or air pollution control facility; and other
discarded materials, including offensive or unsightly matter,solid, liquid, semisolid or contained liquid or gaseous material
resulting from industrial, commercial, mining or community
activities but does not include solid or dissolved material in
sewage or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows
or industrial discharges which are point sources and have permits
under article five-a of this chapter, or source, special nuclear
or by-product material as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of
1954, as amended, including any nuclear or by-product material
considered by federal standards to be below regulatory concern,
or a hazardous waste either identified or listed under article
five-e of this chapter or refuse, slurry, overburden or other
wastes or material resulting from coal-fired electric power or
steam generation, the exploration, development, production,
storage and recovery of coal, oil and gas and other mineral
resources placed or disposed of at a facility which is regulated
under chapter twenty-two, twenty-two-a or twenty-two-b of this
code, so long as such placement or disposal is in conformance
with a permit issued pursuant to such chapters.
(m) "Solid waste disposal" means the practice of disposing
of solid waste including placing, depositing, dumping or throwing
or causing to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown any solid
waste.
(n) "Solid waste disposal shed" means the geographical area
which the solid waste management board designates and files in
the state register pursuant to section eight, article twenty-six,
chapter sixteen of this code.
(o) "Solid waste facility" means any system, facility, land,
contiguous land, improvements on the land, structures or other
appurtenances or methods used for processing, recycling or
disposing of solid waste, including landfills, transfer stations,
materials recovery facilities, mixed waste processing facilities,
sewage sludge processing facilities, composting facilities and
other such facilities not herein specified, but not including
land upon which sewage sludge is applied in accordance with
subsection (b), section two-b of this article. Such facility
shall be deemed to be situated, for purposes of this article, in
the county where the majority of the spatial area of such
facility is located: Provided, That a salvage yard, licensed and
regulated pursuant to the terms of article twenty-three, chapter
seventeen of this code, is not a solid waste facility.
(p) "Class A facility" means a commercial solid waste
facility which handles an aggregate of between ten thousand and
thirty thousand tons of solid waste per month. Class A facility
shall include two or more Class B solid waste landfills owned or
operated by the same person in the same county, if the aggregate
tons of solid waste handled per month by such landfills exceeds
nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine tons of solid waste per
month.
(q) "Applicant" means the person applying for a commercial
solid waste facility permit or similar renewal permit and any
person related to such person by virtue of common ownership,
common management or family relationships as the director of thedivision of environmental protection may specify, including the
following: Spouses, parents and children and siblings.
(r) "Energy recovery incinerator" means any solid waste
facility at which solid wastes are incinerated with the intention
of using the resulting energy for the generation of steam,
electricity or any other use not specified herein.
(s) "Incineration technologies" means any technology that
uses controlled flame combustion to thermally break down solid
waste, including refuse-derived fuel, to an ash residue that
contains little or no combustible materials, regardless of
whether the purpose is processing, disposal, electric or steam
generation or any other method by which solid waste is
incinerated.
(t) "Incinerator" means an enclosed device using controlled
flame combustion to thermally break down solid waste, including
refuse-derived fuel, to an ash residue that contains little or no
combustible materials.
(u) "Materials recovery facility" means any solid waste
facility at which source-separated materials or materials
recovered through a mixed waste processing facility are manually
or mechanically shredded or separated for purposes of reuse and
recycling, but does not include a composting facility.
(v) "Source-separated materials" means materials separated
from general solid waste at the point of origin for the purpose
of reuse and recycling but does not mean sewage sludge.
(w) "Mixed waste processing facility" means any solid wastefacility at which materials are recovered from mixed solid waste
through manual or mechanical means for purposes of reuse,
recycling or composting.
(x) "Mixed solid waste" means solid waste from which
materials sought to be reused or recycled have not been source-
separated from general solid waste.
(y) "Composting facility" means any solid waste facility
processing solid waste by composting, including sludge
composting, organic waste or yard waste composting, but does not
include a facility for composting solid waste that is located at
the site where the waste was generated.
(z) "Recycling facility" means any solid waste facility for
the purpose of recycling at which neither land disposal nor
biological, chemical or thermal transformation of solid waste
occurs: Provided, That mixed waste recovery facilities, sludge
processing facilities and composting facilities are not
considered recycling facilities nor considered to be reusing or
recycling solid waste within the meaning of this article and
articles nine and eleven of this chapter.
(aa) "Landfill" means any solid waste facility for the
disposal of solid waste on land. Such facility is situated, for
purposes of this article, in the county where the majority of the
spatial area of such facility is located.
(bb) "Sewage sludge processing facility" is a solid waste
facility that processes sewage sludge for land application,
incineration or disposal at an approved landfill. Such processesinclude, but are not limited to, composting, lime stabilization,
thermophilic digestion and anaerobic digestion.
(cc) "Bulking agent" means any material mixed and composted
with sewage sludge.
(dd) "Sewage sludge" means solid, semisolid or liquid
residue generated during the treatment of domestic sewage in a
treatment works. Sewage sludge includes, but is not limited to,
domestic septage, scum or solids removed in primary, secondary or
advanced wastewater treatment processes and a material derived
from sewage sludge. "Sewage sludge" does not include ash
generated during the firing of sewage sludge in a sewage sludge
incinerator.
(ee) "Composting" means the aerobic, thermophilic
decomposition of natural constituents of solid waste to produce
a stable, humus-like material.
(ff) "Agronomic rate" means the whole sewage sludge
application rate, by dry weight, designed:
(1) To provide the amount of nitrogen needed by the food
crop, feed crop, fiber crop, cover crop or vegetation on the
land; and
(2) To minimize the amount of nitrogen in the sewage sludge
that passes below the root zone of the crop or vegetation grown
on the land to the ground water.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to change the definition
of commercial recycler to exempt recycling facilities operated by
Solid Waste Authorities from permit requirements.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.