Solano County Municipal Code Art. I In General

25-100 Purpose

The declared purpose of this chapter is to provide for the regulation of chemical toilets; septic tank, chemical toilet, and grease trap pumping trucks; and biosolids land application as well as providing for the issuance, suspension, and revocation of permits in the county; and to promote the development and implementation of other methods of reuse of biosolids, including conversion to energy, in place of land application or land filling of Class B biosolids.

(Ord. No. 888, §1; Ord. No. 1124, §1; Ord. No. 1502; § 1; Ord. No. 1536, §1; Ord. No. 1558, §1; Ord. No. 1689, §1)

25-101 Applicability

This chapter shall apply to all unincorporated territory with the county except that Article IV, commending with section 25-400 does not apply to an approved solid waste facility regulated under Public Resources Code section 43000 et seq.

(Ord. No. 888, §1; Ord. No. 1124, §1; Ord. No. 1536, §1; Ord. No. 1558, §1; Ord. No. 1689, §2; Ord. No. 1731, §1)

25-102 Definitions

Whenever the following terms are used in this Article, they shall have the meanings respectively ascribed to them in this section.

Administrative Authority is Director of the Department of Resource Management or the Director’s designee.

Agricultural Land is land on which a food crop, a feed crop, or a fiber crop is grown. This includes range land and land used as pasture.

Agronomic Rate is the whole domestic septage or biosolids application rate (dry weight basis) designed:

(a) To provide the amount of nitrogen needed by the food crop, feed crop, fiber crop, cover crop, or vegetation grown on the land; and

(b) To minimize the amount of nitrogen that passes below the root zone of the crop or vegetation grown on the lands to the ground water.

Application is a distribution of domestic septage or biosolids to a site, as described in the Landspreading Notification Report for biosolids or the permit for septage, at a rate, determined prior to landspreading, not to exceed either the agronomic rate or the annual pollutant loading rate, based on the intended use of the field. An application shall be limited to once per crop and shall be considered complete when biosolids or septage has been applied at the agronomic rate to each field listed in the Landspreading Notification Report or the permit.

Applicator is any person, company organization, or other legal entity engaged, or about to become engaged in the placement of domestic septage or biosolids on land at a controlled rate for the purpose of enhancing the growth of plants in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. The applicator shall be the same entity which the Regional Water Quality Control Board identifies as the discharger and may include land owner, operator, or lessee.

Annual Pollutant Loading Rate is the maximum amount of pollutant that can be applied to a unit area of land during a 365 day period.

Biosolids (a.k.a., sewage sludge) are the solid, semi-solid, or liquid residues generated during the treatment of domestic sewage and industrial wastewater in a wastewater treatment plant or publicly owned treatment works. Includes, but is not limited to, scum or solids removed in primary, secondary, or advanced wastewater treatment processes, and material derived from sewage sludge.

Biosolid Compost is material containing biosolids produced by a facility that has been approved to handle compostable materials and is regulated under Public Resources Code section 43000 et seq.

Chemical Toilet is a portable toilet facility which contains a chemical material and a tank to receive human wastes pending removal by a chemical toilet pumping vehicle.

Class A Biosolids are biosolids which meet the pathogen requirements in section 503.32(a) of Title 40, Code of Federal Regulations, or revisions thereof. Class A Exceptional Quality (Class A EQ) are Biosolids which meet metals standards, Class A pathogen reduction standards and vector attraction reduction standards contained in 40 CFR Part 503.13 (Table 3), 40 CFR Part 503.32 and 40 CFR 503.33, respectively.

Class B Biosolids are biosolids which meet the pathogen requirements in section 503.32(b) of Title 40, Code of Federal Regulations, or revisions thereof.

Cumulative Pollutant Loading Rate is the maximum amount of a pollutant that can be applied to an area of land.

Domestic Sewage is waste and wastewater from humans or household operations that is discharged to or otherwise enters a treatment works, including the pumpings from individual onsite systems that are brought to a treatment works via a pumping truck.

Field means a discrete, discernable, and identifiable individual piece of land used for crop production, designated or under consideration for domestic septage or biosolids use.

Generator is a treatment works that creates biosolids as part of an approved wastewater treatment process.

Industrial Wastewater is wastewater generated in a commercial or industrial process.

Land Application or Landspreading is the placement of biosolids on agricultural land or reclamation sites intended to support vegetative growth.

Operator is any person or group of persons who control or are responsible for the maintenance of a parcel of land, including but not limited to the owner, farmer, lessee, etc.

Parcel means a discrete piece of land identifiable by an individual number (Assessor’s Parcel Number or APN) assigned by the Assessor of the County of Solano.

Person is any person, firm, business, city, county, district, special district, including a water district, sole proprietorship, partnership, joint venture, trust, association, or corporation whether for profit or non-profit.

Pollutant is an organic substance, an inorganic substance, a combination of organic and inorganic substances, or a pathogenic organism that, after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion, inhalation, or assimilation into an organism either directly from the environment or indirectly by ingestion through the food chain, could, on the basis of information available to the Administrator of United States Environmental Protection Agency, cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological malfunctions (including malfunction in reproduction), or physical deformations in either organisms or offspring of the organisms.

Pollutant Limit is a numerical value that describes the amount of a pollutant allowed per unit amount of biosolids (e.g., milligrams per kilogram of total solids); the amount of a pollutant that can be applied to a unit area of land (e.g., kilograms per hectare); or the volume of a material that can be applied to a unit area of land (e.g., gallons per acre) as listed in 40 CFR section 503.13 or as adopted by the State in law, regulation, basin plans or orders, whichever is more stringent.

Saturated is the point at which soil will no longer absorb water and continued wetting of the soil will result in runoff or standing water.

Site is one or more parcels or fields of land with a single or multiple owners or operators, as described in a Project Description, Site Specific Information Report, Report Of Waste Discharge, or other documents submitted to the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Staging Area is the location on a site where biosolids is deposited on the ground for loading onto a vehicle for landspreading on the same or nearby sites which have been registered with the Administrative Authority and approved or exempted by the appropriate Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Treatment is a process, approved by the Administrative Authority, which alters, modifies, or changes the biological, physical, and/or chemical characteristics of domestic septage and/or domestic sewage.

USEPA is the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

40 CFR 503 is Title 40, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 503 and revisions thereof.

(Ord. No. 888, §1; Ord. No. 1472, §1; Ord. No. 1502, §1; Ord. No. 1536, §1; Ord. No. 1558, §1; Ord. No. 1689, §3; Ord. No. 1731, §2)