Terms Used In Iowa Code > Chapter 455B - Jurisdiction of Department of Natural Resources

• Acquired: means purchased, leased, obtained by inheritance or descent and distribution, or obtained by foreclosure sale under chapter 654, nonjudicial voluntary foreclosure under section 654. See Iowa Code 455B.751
• Actual cost: means the operational, remedial and emergency action, closure, postclosure, and monitoring costs of a sanitary disposal project for the lifetime of the project. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Amortization: Paying off a loan by regular installments.
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• Baseline: Projection of the receipts, outlays, and other budget amounts that would ensue in the future without any change in existing policy. Baseline projections are used to gauge the extent to which proposed legislation, if enacted into law, would alter current spending and revenue levels.
• Beneficial use: means a specific utilization of a solid by-product as a resource that constitutes reuse rather than disposal, does not adversely affect human health or the environment, and is approved by the department. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Beverage: means wine as defined in section 123. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Beverage container: means a sealed glass, plastic, or metal bottle, can, jar, or carton containing a beverage. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Biodegradable: means degradable through a process by which fungi or bacteria secrete enzymes to convert a complex molecular structure to simple gasses and organic compounds. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Certificate: means a certificate of title. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Cleanup: means actions necessary to contain, collect, control, identify, analyze, clean up, treat, disperse, remove, or dispose of a hazardous substance. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Cleanup costs: means costs incurred by the state or its political subdivisions or the agents of the state or a political subdivision in the prevention or mitigation of damages from a hazardous condition or the cleanup of a hazardous substance involved in a hazardous condition. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Closure: means actions that will prevent, mitigate, or minimize the threat to public health and the environment posed by a closed sanitary landfill, including but not limited to application of final cover, grading and seeding of final cover, installation of an adequate monitoring system, and construction of ground and surface water diversion structures, if necessary. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Commission: means the natural resource commission. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Commission: means the environmental protection commission created under section 455A. See Iowa Code 455B.101
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Corrosive: means causing or producing visible destruction or irreversible alterations in human skin tissue at the site of contact, or in the case of leakage of a hazardous substance from its packaging, causing or producing a severe destruction or erosion of other materials through chemical processes. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• deed: is a pplied to an instrument conveying lands, but does not imply a sealed instrument; and the words "bond" and "indenture" do not necessarily imply a seal, and the word "undertaking" means a promise or security in any form. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Degradable: means capable of decomposing by biodegradation, photodegradation, or chemical process into harmless component parts after exposure to natural elements for not more than three hundred sixty-five days. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Department: means the department of natural resources. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Department: means the department of natural resources created under section 455A. See Iowa Code 455B.101
• Director: means the director of the department or the director's designee. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Director: means the director of the department or a designee. See Iowa Code 455B.101
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Distributor: means a person who takes title to one or more packages or packaging components purchased for promotional purposes or resale. See Iowa Code 455D.19
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Financial assurance instrument: means an instrument submitted by an applicant to ensure the operator's financial capability to provide reasonable and necessary remedial responses. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• following: when used by way of reference to a chapter or other part of a statute mean the next preceding or next following chapter or other part. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Gasification: means a process through which recoverable feedstocks are heated and converted into a fuel and gas mixture in an oxygen-deficient atmosphere and the mixture is converted to crude oil, diesel, gasoline, home heating oil, or other fuels; chemicals, waxes, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, diesel and gasoline blendstocks, or other raw materials; or intermediate or final products that are returned to the economic mainstream in the form of raw materials, products, or fuels. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Gasification facility: means a facility that receives, separates, stores, and converts post-use polymers and recoverable feedstocks using gasification. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Guarantor: A party who agrees to be responsible for the payment of another party's debts should that party default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Hazardous condition: means any situation involving the actual, imminent, or probable spillage, leakage, or release of a hazardous substance onto the land, into a water of the state, or into the atmosphere, which creates an immediate or potential danger to the public health or safety or to the environment. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Hazardous substance: means the same as defined in section 455B. See Iowa Code 455B.751
• Hazardous waste: means the same as defined in section 455B. See Iowa Code 455B.751
• Incinerator: means any enclosed device using controlled flame combustion that does not meet the criteria for classification as a boiler and is not listed as an industrial furnace. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Indemnification: In general, a collateral contract or assurance under which one person agrees to secure another person against either anticipated financial losses or potential adverse legal consequences. ^{Source: FDIC}
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• Internet: means the federated international system that is composed of allied electronic communication networks linked by telecommunication channels, that uses standardized protocols, and that facilitates electronic communication services, including but not limited to use of the world wide web; the transmission of electronic mail or messages; the transfer of files and data or other electronic information; and the transmission of voice, image, and video. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Irritant: means a substance causing or producing dangerous or intensely irritating fumes upon contact with fire or when exposed to air. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Leachate: means fluid that has percolated through solid waste and which contains contaminants consisting of dissolved or suspended materials, chemicals, or microbial waste products from the solid waste. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Legislature: means the Iowa general assembly. See Iowa Code 462B.1
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Lifetime of the project: means the projected period of years that a sanitary landfill will receive waste, from the time of opening until closure, based on the volume of waste to be received projected at the time of submittal of the initial project plan and the calculated refuse capacity of the sanitary landfill based upon the design of the project. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Livestock: includes but is not limited to an animal classified as an ostrich, rhea, or emu. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Magistrate: means a judicial officer appointed under chapter 602, article 6, part 4. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Majority leader: see Floor Leaders
• Management plan: means the document that states the goals and objectives of a specific protected water area which has been proposed for designation, the specific description of the area to be protected, land use agreements with property owners, the specific management programming considerations for the area, the in-depth project evaluations, analysis, justifications, and cost estimates, the proposed acquisition of fee title and conservation easements and other agreements, and the specific design and layout of facilities. See Iowa Code 462B.1
• Manufacturing: means physical or chemical modification of one or more materials to produce packaging or packaging components. See Iowa Code 455D.19
• Minority leader: See Floor Leaders
• month: means a calendar month, and the word "year" and the abbreviation "A. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Operate: means to navigate or otherwise use a vessel or motorboat. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Operator: means a person who operates or is in actual physical control of a vessel. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Owner: means a person, other than a lienholder, having the property right in or title to a motorboat or vessel. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means an individual, partnership, firm, corporation, or association. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Person having control over a hazardous substance: means a person who at any time produces, handles, stores, uses, transports, refines, or disposes of a hazardous substance the release of which creates a hazardous condition, including bailees, carriers, and any other person in control of a hazardous substance when a hazardous condition occurs, whether the person owns the hazardous substance or is operating under a lease, contract, or other agreement with the legal owner of the hazardous substance. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Photodegradable: means degradable through a process in which ultraviolet radiation in sunlight causes a chemical change in a material. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Political subdivision: means any municipality, township, or county, or district, or authority, or any portion, or combination of two or more thereof, including but not limited to any emergency services and emergency management agency established pursuant to chapter 28E or 29C, and any municipal fire departments and ambulance services and agents thereof. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Postclosure plan: means the plan which specifies the methods and schedule by which the operator will perform the necessary monitoring and care for the area after closure of a sanitary disposal project. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Potentially responsible party: means a person whose acts or omissions were a proximate cause of the contamination of the acquired property, or a person whose negligent acts or omissions are a proximate cause of injury or damages resulting from exposure to such contamination. See Iowa Code 455B.751
• Presiding officer: A majority-party Senator who presides over the Senate and is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognizing Members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices and precedents.
• Private agency: means a private agency as defined in section 28E. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• property: includes personal and real property. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public agency: means a public agency as defined in section 28E. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Pyrolysis: means a process through which post-use polymers are heated in the absence of oxygen until melted and thermally decomposed and are then cooled, condensed, and converted to crude oil, diesel, gasoline, home heating oil, or other fuels; chemicals, waxes, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, diesel and gasoline blendstocks, or other raw materials; or intermediate or final products that are returned to the economic mainstream in the form of raw materials, products, or fuels. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Pyrolysis facility: means a facility that receives, separates, stores, and converts post-use polymers using pyrolysis. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• real property: include lands, tenements, hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Regulated substance: means the same as defined in section 455B. See Iowa Code 455B.751
• Release: means a threatened or real emission, discharge, spillage, leakage, pumping, pouring, emptying, or dumping of a hazardous substance into or onto the land, air, or waters of the state unless one of the following applies:
   a. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• road: include public bridges, and may be held equivalent to the words "county way" "county road" "common road" and "state road". See Iowa Code 4.1
• Rubble: includes asphalt waste only as long as it is not used in contact with water or in a floodplain. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Rule: includes "regulation". See Iowa Code 4.1
• Sanitary disposal project: means all facilities and appurtenances including all real and personal property connected with such facilities, which are acquired, purchased, constructed, reconstructed, equipped, improved, extended, maintained, or operated to facilitate the final disposition of solid waste without creating a significant hazard to the public health or safety, and which are approved by the director. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• Sanitary landfill: means a sanitary disposal project where solid waste is buried between layers of earth. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• seal: shall include an impression upon the paper alone, or upon wax, a wafer affixed to the paper, or an official stamp of a notarial officer as provided in chapter 9B. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Security interest: means an interest which is reserved or created by an agreement which secures payment or performance of an obligation and is valid against third parties generally. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Solid waste: means garbage, refuse, rubbish, and other similar discarded solid or semisolid materials, including but not limited to such materials resulting from industrial, commercial, agricultural, and domestic activities. See Iowa Code 455B.301
• state: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories, and the words "United States" may include the said district and territories. See Iowa Code 4.1
• State fiscal year: means the fiscal year described in section 3. See Iowa Code 455B.133C
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Third party: means any person other than a person that holds indicia of title to property or that has acquired property as identified in section 455B. See Iowa Code 455B.751
• Third-party liability: means any liability or obligation, other than contractual obligations that specifically waive all or part of the immunity provided by section 455B. See Iowa Code 455B.751
• Toxic: means causing or producing a dangerous physiological, anatomic, or biochemical change in a biological system. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• undertaking: means a promise or security in any form. See Iowa Code 4.1
• United States: includes all the states. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Use: means to operate, navigate, or employ a vessel. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Vessel: means every description of watercraft, other than a seaplane, used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water or ice. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Waters of the state: includes waters of the United States lying within the state. See Iowa Code 455B.381
• year: means twelve consecutive months. See Iowa Code 4.1