Terms Used In Texas Water Code Chapter 26 > Subchapter D - Prohibition Against Pollution; Enforcement

• Agricultural waste: means waterborne liquid, gaseous, or solid substances that arise from the agricultural industry and agricultural activities, including without limitation agricultural animal feeding pens and lots, structures for housing and feeding agricultural animals, and processing facilities for agricultural products. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Board: means the Texas Water Development Board. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Commission: means the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Executive director: means the executive director of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Industrial waste: means waterborne liquid, gaseous, or solid substances that result from any process of industry, manufacturing, trade, or business. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• 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.
• Municipal waste: means waterborne liquid, gaseous, or solid substances that result from any discharge from a publicly owned sewer system, treatment facility, or disposal system. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• NPDES: means the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System under which the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency can delegate permitting authority to the State of Texas in accordance with Section 402(b) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Other waste: means garbage, refuse, decayed wood, sawdust, shavings, bark, sand, lime, cinders, ashes, offal, oil, tar, dyestuffs, acids, chemicals, salt water, or any other substance, other than sewage, industrial waste, municipal waste, recreational waste, or agricultural waste. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Permit: means an order issued by the commission in accordance with the procedures prescribed in this chapter establishing the treatment which shall be given to wastes being discharged into or adjacent to any water in the state to preserve and enhance the quality of the water and specifying the conditions under which the discharge may be made. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Person: means an individual, association, partnership, corporation, municipality, state or federal agency, or an agent or employee thereof. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Point source: means any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, including but not limited to any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, or vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants or wastes are or may be discharged into or adjacent to any water in the state. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Pollutant: means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, filter backwash, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt, and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into any water in the state. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Pollution: means the alteration of the physical, thermal, chemical, or biological quality of, or the contamination of, any water in the state that renders the water harmful, detrimental, or injurious to humans, animal life, vegetation, or property or to public health, safety, or welfare, or impairs the usefulness or the public enjoyment of the water for any lawful or reasonable purpose. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Property: means real and personal property. See Texas Government Code 311.005
• Recreational waste: means waterborne liquid, gaseous, or solid substances that emanate from any public or private park, beach, or recreational area. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Rule: includes regulation. See Texas Government Code 311.005
• Sewage: means waterborne human waste and waste from domestic activities, such as washing, bathing, and food preparation. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• Treatment works: means any devices and systems used in the storage, treatment, recycling, and reclamation of waste to implement this chapter or necessary to recycle or reuse water at the most economical cost over the estimated life of the works, including:
  (A) intercepting sewers, outfall sewers, pumping, power, and other equipment and their appurtenances;
  (B) extensions, improvements, remodeling, additions, and alterations of the items in Paragraph (A) of this subdivision;
  (C) elements essential to provide a reliable recycled supply such as standby treatment units and clear-well facilities;
  (D) any works, including sites and acquisition of the land that will be a part of or used in connection with the treatment process or is used for ultimate disposal of residues resulting from such treatment;
  (E) any plant, disposal field, lagoon, canal, incinerator, area devoted to sanitary landfills, or other facilities installed for the purpose of treating, neutralizing, or stabilizing waste; and
  (F) facilities to provide for the collection, control, and disposal of waste heat. See Texas Water Code 26.001
• United States: includes a department, bureau, or other agency of the United States of America. See Texas Government Code 311.005
• water in the state: means groundwater, percolating or otherwise, lakes, bays, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, rivers, streams, creeks, estuaries, wetlands, marshes, inlets, canals, the Gulf of Mexico, inside the territorial limits of the state, and all other bodies of surface water, natural or artificial, inland or coastal, fresh or salt, navigable or nonnavigable, and including the beds and banks of all watercourses and bodies of surface water, that are wholly or partially inside or bordering the state or inside the jurisdiction of the state. See Texas Water Code 26.001