North Dakota Code 23.1-10-04 – Definitions
As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:
Terms Used In North Dakota Code 23.1-10-04
- Person: means an individual, organization, government, political subdivision, or government agency or instrumentality. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
- Property: includes property, real and personal. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
- State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
1. “Containment unit” means any one or a combination of containers, vessels, and enclosures, including structures and appurtenances connected to them, which is or has been used to contain or dispense a regulated substance and is either stationary or attached to a motor vehicle. The definition includes pipeline facilities that transport and store regulated substances.
2. “Corrective action” means an action taken to investigate, minimize, contain, eliminate, remediate, mitigate, monitor, or clean up a release including any necessary emergency remedial effort.
3. “Corrective action cost” means any cost incurred by the department in conducting or overseeing corrective actions performed on a release; or the performance of reasonable measures undertaken to prevent or mitigate damage to the public health, public safety, public welfare, or environment of the state.
4. “Department” means the department of environmental quality.
5. “Emergency remedial effort” means an action taken to protect the public health, public safety, or environment from imminent danger resulting from a release, and an action taken to contain a release that, if not contained, will pose in time a greater threat to the public health, public safety, or environment than if the action is not taken immediately.
6. “Environment” means land, including public and private property, surface and underground waters, fish, wildlife, biota, air, and other similar resources within the state.
7. “Fund” means the environmental quality restoration fund.
8. “Institutional controls” and “activity and use limitations” are restrictions on the use and management of real property, including buildings or fixtures, containing or preventing migration of regulated substances or other pollution or contamination, or protecting receptors from exposure or the threat of exposure to regulated substances or other pollution or contamination. Institutional controls may apply:
a. During environmental remediation activities; or
b. To residual regulated substances, pollutants, or other pollution or contamination or the byproducts of residual regulated substances, pollutants, or other pollution or contamination which may remain on property after active environmental remediation activities are concluded or while natural attenuation of regulated substances or other pollution or contamination is occurring.
9. “Potentially responsible party” means a person identified as a possible cause of, or contributor to, contamination or pollution on a site or property.
10. “Regulated substance” means a compound designated by the department, including pesticides and fertilizers regulated by the department of agriculture; the hazardous substances designated by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act [Pub. L. 80-845; 62 Stat. 1155; 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq.]; the toxic pollutants designated by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act [Pub. L. 94-469; 90 Stat. 2003; 15 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq.]; the hazardous substances designated by the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act [Pub. L. 96-510; 94 Stat. 2767; 42 U.S.C. § 9601 et seq.]; petroleum, petroleum substances, oil, gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, oil sludge, oil refuse, production water, oil mixed with other wastes, crude oils, substances, or additives to be utilized in refining or blending crude petroleum or petroleum stock; any other oil or petroleum substance; solid waste regulated under chapter 23.1-08; and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material regulated under chapter 23.1-03. Radioactive material other than technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material is not a regulated substance under this chapter.
11. “Release” means an intentional or unintentional act or omission that results in the discharge, spill, leak, emission, escape, or disposal of a regulated substance into the environment and harms or threatens harm to public health or public safety or the environment.
12. “Responsible party” means a person that causes or contributes to an onsite or offsite release or threatened release, or that is responsible for an illegal or unpermitted storage, of a regulated substance that results in the contamination or pollution of a property or site.