Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in this chapter shall be as follows:

1. "Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)" means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure in five days at twenty degrees centigrade, expressed in milligrams per liter.

2. "Building drain" means that part of the lowest horizontal piping of a drainage system which receives the discharge from soil, waste, and other drainage pipes inside the walls of the building and conveys it to the building sewer, beginning five feet (1.5 m) outside the inner face of the building wall.

3. "Building sewer" means the extension from the building drain to the public sewer or other place of disposal, also called house connection.

4. "City" means the city of Columbia Falls, Montana.

5. Customer Class. The term means the grouping of water users with other users that share a similar usage pattern or usage environment.

6. Consumer or Customer. This term means the individual, partnership, or corporation identified on an approved application as the owner of the property served or the owner’s designee.

7. "Easement" means an acquired legal right for the specific use of land owned by others.

8. "Equivalent dwelling unit (EDU)" means an estimate of the average volume of water that an average single family residence will contribute to sewer volume as adopted in the rate schedule.

9. "Floatable oil" means oil, fat, or grease in a physical state such that it will separate by gravity from wastewater by treatment in an approved pretreatment facility. A wastewater shall be considered free of floatable fat if it is properly pretreated and the wastewater does not interfere with the collection system.

10. "Garbage" means the animal and vegetable waste resulting from the handling, preparation, cooking and serving of foods.

11. "Green space" means an area of lot adjacent to a fronting public street, not to exceed ten percent of the total lot area, where vegetation, excluding nuisance, noxious weed and rank vegetation, is sufficiently maintained in appearance by the application of irrigation water.

12. "Green space allowance" means an estimate of water that is used for the purpose of irrigation and not subject to sewer volume charges.

13. "Industrial wastes" means the wastewater from industrial processes, trade or business as distinguished from domestic or sanitary wastes.

14. Main-City Main-Main Line-Main Piping. This term means the piping and appurtenances located within a public right-of-way or city easement, constructed for the purpose of collecting wastewater from approved connections.

15. "Natural outlet" means any outlet, including storm sewers, into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake, or other body of surface or groundwater.

16. "May" is permissive.

17. New Service Connection. This term means connection of a building on property that has had no previous connection or has an abandoned connection.

18. On-site Sewerage Disposal-Private Wastewater Disposal. A sewage disposal system that involves storing solid portions of the waste stream in a tank for anaerobic degradation and draining liquids into the adjacent subsurface soils. Components include a septic tank and drainfield or a cesspool.

19. Payment Agreement. This term means a written agreement, on city form, that prescribes the schedule of payment for past due amounts.

20. "Person" means any individual, firm, company, association, society, corporation or group.

21. "Plant investment fee" means an amount to offset the cost of restoring system capacity that is reduced with usage from each additional connection.

22. "pH" means the logarithm of the reciprocal of the hydrogen ion concentration. The concentration is the weight of hydrogen ions, in grams, per liter of solution. Neutral water, for example, has a pH value of seven and a hydrogen ion concentration of 10-7.

23. "Properly shredded garbage" means the wastes from the preparation, cooking, and dispensing of food that have been shredded to such a degree that all particles will be carried freely under the flow conditions normally prevailing in public sewers, with no particle greater than one-half inch (1.27 centimeters) in any dimension.

24. "Public sewer" means a common sewer controlled by a governmental agency or public utility.

25. "Public sewer available" means that the utility’s main line sewer piping is present in a public right-of-way or easement that shares a common border with the customers property and the point of connection is within two hundred feet of the customers property line.

26. Rate-Rate Schedule. This term means sewer rates or fees set forth under the rate schedule adopted by the city council by resolution.

27. "Sanitary sewer" means a sewer that carries liquid and water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants, and institutions together with minor quantities of ground, storm, and surface waters that are not admitted intentionally.

28. Sewage. See wastewater.

29. "Sewer" means a pipe or conduit that carries wastewater or drainage water.

30. "Shall" is mandatory (see "may," subsection 12 of this section).

31. "Slug" means any discharge of water or wastewater which in concentration of any given constituent or in quantity of flow exceeds for any period of duration longer than fifteen minutes more than five times the average twenty-four-hour concentration of flows during normal operation and shall adversely affect the collection system and/or performance of the wastewater treatment works.

32. "Storm drain" (sometimes termed storm sewer) means a drain or sewer for conveying water, groundwater, subsurface water, or unpolluted water from any source.

33. "Suspended solids" means total suspended matter that either floats on the surface of, or is in suspension in water, wastewater, or other liquids, and that is removable by laboratory filtering as prescribed in standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater and referred to as nonfilterable residue.

34. Service Charge-Base Service Charge. An amount charged per connection based on the equivalent dwelling unit methodology prescribed in the rate schedule.

35. Superintendent-Sewer Superintendent. This term means the person appointed by the city as the head of the sewer department.

36. "Unpolluted water" means water of quality equal to or better than the effluent criteria in effect or water that would not cause violation of receiving water quality standards and would not be benefited by discharge to the sanitary sewers and wastewater treatment facilities provided.

37. Utility. This term means the city sewer department.

38. Volume Charge. The charge for volume of sewer collected at the property served determined by monthly water meter reading or estimate based on an average of known volume usage.

39. "Wastewater" means the spent water of a community. From the standpoint of source, it may be a combination of the liquid and water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants and institutions.

40. "Wastewater facilities" means the structures, equipment, and processes required to collect, carry away, and treat domestic and industrial wastes and dispose of the effluent.

41. "Wastewater treatment works" means an arrangement of devices and structures for treating wastewater, industrial wastes and sludge. Sometimes used as synonymous with waste treatment plant or water pollution control plant.

42. "Water course" means a natural or artificial channel for the passage of water either continuously or intermittently.

43. Winter Averaging. This term means the method of estimating sewer volume during months when water meter readings likely exclude water used for irrigation; being those months stated in the rate schedule. (Ord. 654 § 1(part), 2004)