Santa Maria Integrated Waste Management Facility EIR Section XI Glossary of Technical Terms

XI. GLOSSARY of TECHNICAL TERMS

AB 939 (Assembly Bill 939): Enacted as the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989. California law requiring each city and county to prepare plans detailing how the jurisdiction will meet specified waste diversion goals. The Act establishes a waste-management hierarchy for the State, emphasizing (in order of importance) source reduction, recycling and composting, and environmentally-safe transformation and environmentally safe landfilling.

Acre: A unit of land equal to 43,560 square feet.

Acre-foot: A unit of measure for water demand and supply. The volume of one acre-foot would cover one acre to a depth of one foot and is equal to 325,851 gallons.

Air Basin: An area of the state designated by the Air Resources Board pursuant to Subdivision (a) of § 39606 of the California Health and Safety Code for air quality planning purposes.

Air District: A political body responsible for managing air quality on a regional or county basis. California is currently divided into 35 air districts.

Air Pollution Control District (APCD): A regional government bureau responsible for attainment and management of air quality standards through permitting and regulating of the emission sources.

Alternative Daily Cover (ADC): ADC is any non-soil material used for covering waste deposited in a landfill at the end of each working day, that meets regulatory requirements (Title 27 CCR, §20690) and the approval of the LEA.

Ambient: Surrounding on all sides.

Ambient Air: Any unconfined portion of the atmosphere; the outside air.

Ambient Air Quality Standard (AAQS): A federal and state measure of the level of air contamination that is not to be exceeded in order to protect human health.

Aquifer: a geological formation, group of formations, or portion of a formation capable of yielding significant quantities of ground water to wells or springs.

Alquist-Priolo Special Study Zone: In 1972, the State of California began delineating Special Studies Zones around active and potentially active faults in the State. The zones extend about 660 feet on either side of identified fault traces. No structures for human occupancy may be built across an identified fault trace. An area of 50 feet on either side of an active fault trace is assumed to be underlain by the fault unless proven otherwise. Proposed construction within the Special Studies Zone can take place only following completion of a geotechnical report prepared by a California Registered Geologist or Certified Engineering Geologist.

Average Daily Trips (ADT): Number of vehicles traveling per normal day on a roadway.

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Beneficial Use: Beneficially using a waste instead of disposing of it in a landfill. Examples include agricultural land application of ash or dewatered sludge for soil amendment purposes.

Best Available Control Measure (BACM): A term used to describe the “best” measures (according to U.S. EPA guidance) for controlling small or dispersed sources of particulate matter and other emissions from sources such as roadway dust, woodstoves, and open burning.

Best Available Control Technology (BACT): BACT is defined as the most stringent emissions control which for a given air emission source has been 1) achieved in practice; 2) is identified in a State Implementation Plan; or 3) has been found by the air district to be technologically achievable and cost-effective.

Best Management Practice (BMP): Any program, technology, process, siting criteria, operational method, measure, or device which controls, prevents, removes, or reduces pollution.

California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA): California law requiring the disclosure of environmental effects of proposed projects before discretionary approval can be issued.

Carbon dioxide (CO2): A colorless, odorless gas produced when any carbon-based fuel is burned. Also produced via animal respiration.

Carbon monoxide (CO): A colorless, odorless, toxic gas produced by incomplete combustion of carbon in fossil fuels.

Cell: That portion of compacted solid wastes in a landfill that is enclosed by natural soil or cover material during a designated period.

Class II Landfill: Landfill permitted to accept municipal solid waste (MSW) and designated wastes. Class II landfill construction design and operation requires more stringent groundwater protection than Class III landfills.

Class III Landfill: Sanitary landfill typically permitted to accept only municipal solid waste (MSW).

Clay Liner: A continuous layer of clay installed beneath or on the sides of a waste management unit, which acts as a barrier to vertical or lateral movement of fluid, including waste and leachate.

Commercial Solid Wastes: Commercial solid wastes include all types of solid wastes generated by stores, offices, and other commercial sources.

Community Noise Equivalent Level (CNEL): A noise compatibility level established by California Administrative Code, Title 21, Section 5000. Represents a time-weighted 24-hour average noise level based on the A-weighted decibel. The CNEL scale includes an additional 5 dB adjustment to sounds occurring in the evening (7 p.m. to 10 p.m.) and a 10 dB adjustment to sound occurring in the late evening and early morning between (10 p.m. and 7 a.m.).

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Composite Liner: Liner system that is constructed of a single clay liner, over which a synthetic liner (such as a liner made of high density polyethylene plastic) is placed in direct contact.

Composting: The process by which discarded organic materials – including (for example) tree trimmings, grass clippings, yard waste, agricultural wastes, leaf debris and sewage sludge – are converted to usable products through controlled biological decomposition.

Co-composting: Composting of biosolids (sewage sludge) with yard waste or other materials.

Containment System: The portion of the disposal cell that is comprised of the liner and leachate collection and removal system.

County Integrated Waste Management Plan (CIWMP): Plan submitted by each county to the California Integrated Waste Management Board consisting of the following:  All city and regional agency Source Reduction and Recycling Elements (SRREs) and Household Hazardous Waste Elements (HHWEs);  SRRE and HHWE prepared for the unincorporated areas of the county;  The Countywide Siting Element and Summary Plan; and  The Nondisposal Facility Element.

County Solid Waste Management Plan (CSWMP): Waste management plan required prior to passage of AB 939. Under AB 939, the plan is to be superseded by the CIWMP.

Countywide Siting Element (Countywide Solid Waste Facility Siting Element): Under AB 939, each county must prepare a Countywide Siting Element which includes a description of the area to be used for development of adequate transformation or disposal capacity consistent with the development and implementation of the county and city SRREs.

Cover Material: Material (usually soil) used at a landfill to cover compacted waste at specific, designated intervals. Its purpose is to serve as a barrier to: the emergence or attraction of vectors, the progress of fires within the landfill, the escape of odor, and excess infiltration of surface water runoff.

Daily Cover: Cover material spread and compacted on the entire surface of the active face of the sanitary landfill at least at the end of each operating day in order to control vectors, fire, water infiltration, erosion, and to prevent unsightliness and scavenging.

Decibel: A unit used to express relative difference in power or intensity, usually between two acoustic or electric signals. The A-weighted decibel scale (dBA) represents the relative insensitivity of the human ear to low pitched sounds; decibels are logarithmic units that compare the wide range of sound intensives to which the human ear is sensitive.

Designated Waste: Can be either 1) non-hazardous waste that consists of or contains pollutants that, under ambient environmental conditions at the landfill, could be released at concentrations in excess of applicable water quality objectives, or that could cause degradation of waters of the state; or 2) hazardous waste that has been granted a variance from hazardous waste management requirements pursuant to §66310 of Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations (CCR).

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Effluent: Wastewater or other liquid, partially or completely treated or in its natural state, flowing from a treatment plant.

Emission: Unwanted substances released by human activity into air or water.

Erosion: The process by which material is removed from the earth's surface (including weathering, dissolution, abrasion, and transportation), most commonly by wind or water.

Equivalent Noise Level (Leq): A single-number representation of the fluctuating sound level in decibels over a specified period of time. It is a sound-energy average of the fluctuating level.

Expansive Soils: Soils that swell when they absorb water and shrink as they dry.

Fault: A fracture or zone of fractures in rock strata which have undergone movement that displaces the sides relative to each other, usually in a direction parallel to the fracture. Abrupt movement on faults is a cause of most earthquakes.

Fugitive Dust: Pulverized soil particles that are introduced into the air through activities such as soil cultivation or vehicles operating on dirt roadways.

Fill: Compacted solid waste and cover material.

Final Cover: The cover material that represents the permanently exposed final surface of a fill.

Flood Plain: The land area which is subject to flooding in any year from any source.

Generator: The source of materials discharged into the waste stream: the household, commercial establishment, or factory.

Geosynthetics: Flexible materials in planar form manufactured to meet specific engineering purposes. The term includes, but is not limited to: “geomembrane,” an essentially impermeable membrane used as a barrier to waste solids and fluids, and synonymous with “synthetic liner” and “flexible membrane liner (FML)”; “geocomposite liner (GCL),” a manufactured material using geotextiles, geogrids, geonets, and/or geomembranes in laminated or composite form; “geotextile” (including “geonet”), any permeable textile used with foundation, soil, rock, earth, or any other geotechnical engineering-related material as an integral part of a constructed project, structure, or system.

Groundwater: Water below the land surface.

Hazardous material: A substance or combination of substances which because of its quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical or infectious characteristics, may either (1) cause, or significantly contribute to, an increase in mortality or an increase in serious, irreversible, or incapacitating reversible, illness; or (2) pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, disposed of or otherwise managed.

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Hazardous Wastes: As defined in California Code of Regulations Title 22, wastes that pose a hazard to human health or the environment due to their flammability, corrosiveness, reactivity, or toxicity to living things.

Heavy Metals: Elements including cadmium, mercury, lead, and arsenic which tend to accumulate in the food chain.

Hydrocarbons, non-methane: Mixture or concentration of hydrocarbons with the methane fraction ignored. One of many formulations for reactive hydrocarbons.

Impervious Surface: Ground surface that cannot be penetrated by water. Includes paved and compacted surfaces, as well as those covered by buildings.

Incinerator: A facility that burns waste (usually municipal solid waste, but also hazardous waste) for the purpose of volume reduction.

Intermediate Cover: Cover material that is applied on areas where additional cells are not to be constructed for extended periods of time, and therefore, must resist erosion for a longer period of time than daily cover.

Joint Technical Document (JTD): Background document on landfill design, operations, and closure that serves as the basis for both the landfill’s Solid Waste Facilities Permit and the Waste Discharge Requirements.

Land Application: The application of ash, sludge or sludge products such as compost to agricultural and nonagricultural lands. Agricultural lands include land used for food crops, feed crops, range, and pasture lands. Nonagricultural lands include forest, reclaimed or disturbed lands, and lands with potential public contact such as ball fields and golf courses. Land application is an alternative to landfill disposal.

Leachate: Liquid that has come in contact with or percolated through waste materials and has extracted or dissolved substances there from.

Leachate Treatment and/or Disposal Facilities: Since an efficient liner and LCRS have potential to collect large quantities of leachate, the landfill owner must have an immediate means to dispose of it. Options for disposing of leachate include: 1) on-site treatment and discharge, 2) discharge of untreated leachate to a publicly or privately owned wastewater treatment facility, or 3) pretreatment of the leachate prior to discharge into a wastewater treatment facility.

Level of Service (LOS): A qualitative measure describing operational conditions within a traffic stream, ranging from ranging from A (free flowing) to F (highly congested).

Lift: In a sanitary landfill, a series of daily cells, placed contiguous to each other, typically along a uniform elevation or height. Once a lift has been completed, the operation moves up on top of the previous lift and begins a new series of daily cells.

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Liquefaction: The process of making or becoming liquid (soils). Earthquakes can cause liquefaction where intense shaking forces loosely packed, water-logged sediments to become loose.

Local Enforcement Agency (LEA): County or city agency (other than the government department or agency that is the operating unit for a solid waste facility) given authority to oversee implementation of CIWMB regulations. The LEA may be certified under four categories: 1. Permitting, inspection, and enforcement at solid waste landfills 2. Incineration 3. Transfer and processing stations 4. Inspection and enforcement of litter, odor, and nuisance regulations at landfills.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW): Solid waste from residential, commercial, and institutional sources that is generally disposed of in Class III landfills.

Maximum Credible Earthquake (MPE): The maximum earthquake predicted to affect a given location based on the known lengths of the active faults in the vicinity.

Maximum Probable Earthquake (MPE): The largest earthquake a fault is predicted capable of generating within a specific time period of concern.

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES): Federal requirement under the Clean Water Act (CWA) that any discharge of a non-point source of pollution into waters of the United States be in conformance with any established water quality management plan developed under the Clean Water Act.

Nitrogen oxides (NOx): Poisonous and highly reactive gases produced when fuel is burned at high temperatures, causing nitrogen in the air to combine with oxygen.

Operator: The person responsible for the overall operation of a landfill facility or part of a landfill facility.

Owner: The person who owns a landfill facility or part of a landfill facility.

Ozone (O3): A molecule of three oxygen atoms. A colorless gas formed by a complex series of chemical and photochemical reaction of reactive organic gases, principally hydrocarbons, with the oxides of nitrogen, which is harmful to the public health, the biota, and some materials.

Particulate matter (particulates): Very fine sized solid matter or droplets, typically averaging one micron or smaller in diameter. Also called “aerosol.”

Permeability: The measurement of a material’s ability to allow the passage of moisture. For landfill applications, it is usually expressed in centimeters per second.

Post Closure Maintenance Period: The period after closure during which the waste could have an adverse effect on the environment.

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Recycling: The process of collecting, sorting, cleansing, treating, and reconstituting materials that would otherwise become solid waste, and returning them to the economic mainstream in the form of raw material for new products. Does not include the conversion of waste into energy.

Report of Waste Discharge: Functions as part of a landfill’s permit application to the Regional Water Quality Control Board to receive a Waste Discharge Requirement.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA): Federal law that specifies (among other things) how municipal solid waste, designated waste, and hazardous wastes are to be properly landfilled.

Resource Recovery: The reclamation or salvage of wastes for reuse, conversion to energy, or recycling.

Run-off: Any rainwater, leachate, or other liquid that drains over land from any part of a facility.

Run-on: Any rainwater, leachate, or other liquid that drains over land onto any part of a facility.

Sanitary Landfill: A disposal site employing an engineered method of disposing of solid wastes in a manner that minimizes environmental hazards by spreading, compacting to the smallest practical volume and applying cover material over all exposed wastes at the end of each operating day.

Sludge: Any solid, semi-solid, or liquid waste generated from a municipal, commercial, or industrial wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility exclusive of the treated effluent from a wastewater treatment plant. CCR Title 27 specifies that for co-disposal of sludges in landfills, the sludge must contain at least 20 percent solids if primary sludge, or at least 15 percent solids if the sludge is secondary sludge, mixtures of primary and secondary sludges, or water treatment sludge.

Source Reduction and Recycling Element (SRRE): In accordance with the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, an SRRE is a plan for cities and counties to divert 25 percent of solid wastes from landfill disposal by 1995 and 50 percent by the year 2000.

Special Waste: Special waste is waste which is a hazardous waste only because it contains an inorganic substance or substances which cause it to pose a chronic toxicity hazard to human health or the environment and which meets all of the criteria and requirements of CCR Title 22 §66261.122 and has been classified a special waste pursuant to CCR Title 22 § 66261.124.

Solid Waste Facilities Permit (SWFP): Permit issued by the Local Enforcement Agency (LEA) authorizing a landfill to operate.

Sulfur oxides (SOx). The group of compounds formed during combustion or thereafter in the atmosphere of sulfur compounds in the fuel, each having various levels of oxidation, ranging from two oxygen atoms for each sulfur atom to four oxygen atoms.

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Unit risk value: The probability of incurring cancer if exposed to one microgram per cubic meter (ug/m3) of the pollutant of concern.

Unstable Areas: Locations susceptible to natural or human-induced events or forces capable of impairing the integrity of some or all of the landfill structural components responsible for preventing releases from a landfill. Unstable areas are characterized by localized or regional ground subsidence, settling (either slowly, or very rapidly and catastrophically) of over burden, or by slope failure.

Volume to Capacity (V/C) Ratio: A measure of the capacity of a roadway. When V/C is 100 percent, no more traffic can be accommodated.

Waste Cell: At a landfill, compacted solid wastes covered with a thin, continuous layer of soil.

Waste Discharge Requirements (WDR): The permit issued by Regional Water Quality Control Board for the discharge of waste to land (i.e., a landfill).

Waste Management Unit: Area of land, or a portion of a waste management facility, at which waste is discharged. The term includes containment features and ancillary facilities for precipitation and drainage control and monitoring, and can be applied to landfills or surface impoundments.

Waste stream: The body of material composed of discards, by-products, and obsolete objects that is generated by industry, government, and the private commercial and residential sectors. The “waste stream” does not always end up wasted per se in landfills or incinerators: some of it will be recycled, composted, salvaged for re-use, or sent to waste-to-energy facilities.

Wetland: Those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands include, but are not limited to, swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas. [as defined by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. EPA]

Williamson Act lands: Lands preserved for agricultural production. Lands under Williamson Act contracts are assessed according to their agricultural use value rather than as potentially developable lands.

Working Face: The area where daily disposal operations are conducted at a landfill: it is usually on a slope, where waste is deposited and compacted with landfill equipment.

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