567—137.2 (455H) Definitions.
“Affected area” means any real property affected, suspected of being affected, or modeled to be likely affected by a release occurring at an enrolled site.
“Affiliate” means a corporate parent, subsidiary, or predecessor of a participant, a co-owner or co-operator of a participant, a spouse, parent, or child of a participant, an affiliated corporation or enterprise of a participant, or any other person substantially involved in the legal affairs or management of a participant as defined by the department.
“Background standard” means a standard which represents concentrations of contaminants which are naturally occurring or are generally present and not related to a readily identifiable release.
“Carcinogenic health risk” means the incremental risk of a person developing cancer over a lifetime (70 years) as a result of exposure to a hazardous substance, expressed as a probability such as one in a million (10-6). The contaminant level for the probability value is derived from application of certain designated exposure assumptions and a slope factor.
“Contaminant” means any hazardous substance found in the various media of the environment.
“Contaminant of concern” means specific hazardous substances that are identified for evaluation in the risk assessment process. Identification can be based on their historical and current use at the site, detected concentrations in environmental media and their mobility, toxicity, and persistence in the environment.
“Cumulative risk” means a summation of cancer and noncancer risks, determined separately, based on exposure to multiple contaminants from the same medium and exposure of the same individual to contaminants in multiple media.
“Enrolled site” means any property which has been or is suspected to be the site of or affected by a release and which has been enrolled pursuant to this chapter by a participant.
“Environmental protection easement” means an institutional control created under Iowa Code Supplement section 455H.206 which is a statutorily authorized restriction on land use.
“Exposure pathway” means the course a contaminant of concern may take from its source area to an exposed organism. Each exposure pathway includes a source or release from a source, a point of exposure, and an exposure route.
“Exposure route” means the manner in which a contaminant of concern comes in contact with an organism (e.g., ingestion, inhalation, dermal contact).
“Free product” means a hazardous substance that is present as a nonaqueous phase liquid (e.g., liquid not dissolved in water) or is present as a solid in its original form as a product or waste material.
“Gross contamination” means contamination present at concentrations in an amount sufficient to reasonably expect that institutional or technological controls will not be adequately protective of human health or the environment.
“Group A, B, C, D and E chemicals” means hazardous substances which have been classified based on the weight of evidence of human carcinogenicity. Group A substances are carcinogenic to humans. Group B substances are likely to be carcinogenic to humans. Group C substances have suggestive evidence of human carcinogenicity, but not sufficient evidence to assess human carcinogenic potential. Data are inadequate to assess human carcinogenic potential for Group D substances. Group E substances are not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.
“Hazardous substance” means any substance or mixture of substances that presents a danger to the public health or safety and includes, but is not limited to, a substance that is toxic, corrosive, or flammable, or that is an irritant or that generates pressure through decomposition, heat, or other means. “Hazardous substance” may include any hazardous waste identified or listed by the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency under the Solid Waste Disposal Act as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, or any toxic pollutant listed under Section 307 of the federal Water Pollution Control Act as amended to January 1, 1977, or any hazardous substance designated under Section 311 of the federal Water Pollution Control Act as amended to January 1, 1997, or any hazardous material designated by the Secretary of Transportation under the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act.
“Hydraulic conductivity” means a measure of the capacity of a porous medium (rock or soil) to transmit water. It is expressed as the volume of water that will flow through a unit length of a unit cross-sectional area of the porous medium in a unit time with a unit head loss.
“Institutional controls” means a nonphysical action which restricts land use to reduce or eliminate exposure to the contaminants of an affected area.
“Lifetime health advisory level (HAL)” means an advisory level established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency which represents the concentration of a single contaminant in drinking water which is not expected to cause adverse health effects over lifetime exposure.
“Maximum contaminant level (MCL)” means a standard for drinking water established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act which is the maximum permissible level of a contaminant in water which is delivered to any user of a public water supply.
“No further action certificate” means the same as no further action letter in Iowa Code Supplement section 455H.301. It is a document issued by the department to the participant certifying no further response action is required at an enrolled site for those conditions classified as no further action except the monitoring or the maintenance of institutional or technological controls when required.
“No further action certification” means the department has determined an enrolled site has met all standards applicable for the identified hazardous substances and no further response action is required except the monitoring or the maintenance of institutional or technological controls when required.
“Noncancer health risk” means the potential for adverse systemic or toxic effects caused by exposure to noncarcinogenic hazardous substances expressed as the hazard quotient for a hazardous substance. A hazard quotient is the ratio of the level of exposure of a hazardous substance over a specified time period to a reference dose derived for a similar time period.
“Nonresidential land-use area” means any area that is not a residential land-use area.
“Participant” means any person who enrolls property pursuant to this chapter. A participant is a participant only to the extent the participant complies with the requirements of this chapter.
“Point of compliance” means a location selected within the affected area where the concentration of contaminants of concern must be at or below the target levels established for that point.
“Point of exposure” means the location at which an individual or population may come in contact with a contaminant of concern from the enrolled site.
“Protected groundwater source” means a saturated bed, formation, or group of formations which has a hydraulic conductivity of at least 0.44 meters per day (m/d) and a total dissolved solids concentration of less than 2,500 milligrams per liter (mg/l).
“Receptor” means an individual or population that is or may be affected by a release from the enrolled site.
“Reference dose,” expressed in units of milligrams per day exposure to the contaminant per kilogram of body weight of the exposed individual, means the amount of contaminant that an individual can ingest on a daily basis for a lifetime that is not likely to result in adverse noncancer health effects. A reference dose is protective of the entire human population, including sensitive subpopulations.
“Release” means any spilling, leaking, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment of a hazardous substance, including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles containing any hazardous substance, but excludes all of the following:
	  1. 	 Any release which results in exposure to persons solely within a workplace, with respect to a claim which such persons may assert against the employer of such persons.
	  2. 	 Emission from the engine exhaust of a motor vehicle, rolling stock, aircraft, vessel, or pipeline pumping station engine.
	  3. 	 The release of source, by-product, or special nuclear material from a nuclear incident, as those terms are defined in the federal Atomic Energy Act of 1954, if such release is subject to requirements with respect to financial protection established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under 42 U.S.C. § 2210 or, for the purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 9604 or any other response action, any release of source, by-product, or special nuclear material from any processing site designated under 42 U.S.C. § 7912(a)(1) or § 7942(a).
	  4. 	 The use of pesticides in accordance with the product label.
“Residential land-use area” means an area zoned for residential use or an area where residential use currently exists, is planned, or is not otherwise precluded. In addition, a residential land-use area includes other areas where frequent, long-term, close contact with soils is likely to occur (e.g., playgrounds, sport fields, gardens, child care facilities).
“Response action” means an action taken to reduce, minimize, eliminate, clean up, control, assess, or monitor a release to protect the public health and safety or the environment. “Response action” includes, but is not limited to, investigation, excavation, removal, disposal, cleaning of groundwaters or surface waters, natural biodegradation, institutional controls, technological controls, or site management practices.
“Risk evaluation/response action document” means a document based on the site assessment for the enrolled site which includes a risk evaluation, proposed response action, and proposed compliance verification strategy for the enrolled site.
“Site assessment plan” means the optional plan submitted to the department which lays out the rationale and the steps to be followed in the conduct of a site assessment for the enrolled site.
“Site assessment report” means the report of the site assessment which defines the nature and extent of contamination, identifies likely exposure pathways, and allows for characterizing potential and current exposure risks posed by the enrolled site.
“Site-specific standard” means a standard for a specific site which represents a concentration of a contaminant in a media of an affected area at which exposure through a specific pathway is considered unlikely to pose a threat to human health, safety, or the environment given site-specific factors related to contaminant transport and likely exposure.
“Slope factor” means an upper bound estimate that approximates a 95 percent confidence limit of the increased cancer risk from a lifetime exposure to a contaminant. This estimate is expressed in units of the proportion of a population that is affected per milligram per day exposure to the contaminant per kilogram of body weight of the exposed individual.
“Statewide standard” means a standard which represents a concentration of a contaminant in a specific media of an affected area at which normal, unrestricted exposure through a specific exposure pathway is considered unlikely to pose a threat to human health, safety, or the environment.
“Surface water” means general use segments as provided in 567—paragraph 61.3(1)“a” and designated use segments of water bodies as provided in 567—paragraph 61.3(1)“b” and 567—subrule 61.3(5).
“Target level” means a concentration of a contaminant of concern required to establish compliance with background, statewide or site-specific standards.
“Target organ” means the biological organ(s) most adversely affected from exposure to the contaminant of concern. A “reference dose” used to calculate noncancer health risk is normally established based on adverse impact to a target organ or organs from exposure to the contaminant of concern.
“Technological control” means a physical action whose main purpose is to reduce or eliminate exposure to the contaminants of an affected area.