Agronomic rates*
means the application of livestock wastes and process wastewater at rates that meet crop needs for nitrogen and phosphorus, while taking into account other sources of nutrients, and without leading to or causing water quality impairment due to over application.
Application area*
means land utilized for the land application of livestock wastes.
Best Management Practices (BMPs)*
means schedules of activities, prohibitions, maintenance procedures, and other management practices found to be the most effective methods based on the best available technology achievable for specific sites to prevent or reduce the discharge of pollutants to waters of the State and control odor where appropriate. Best management practices also include operating procedures and practices to control site runoff, spillage, leaks, sludge or waste disposal, or drainage from raw material storage.
Dewatering days*
means days that have suitable weather and soil conditions for land application of accumulated livestock wastes.
Discharge*
means the spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, or dumping of pollutants into any waters of the State or in a place which will likely reach waters of the State.
Holding pond*
means an impoundment made by constructing an excavated pit, dam, embankment or combination of these for temporary storage of liquid livestock wastes, generally receiving runoff from open lots and contributing drainage area.
Irrigation distribution system*
means any device or combination of devices having a hose, pipe, or other conduit through which livestock wastes or a mixture of water and livestock wastes is drawn and applied for agricultural or horticultural purposes.
Lagoon*
means an impoundment made by constructing an excavated pit, dam, embankment or combination of these for treatment of liquid livestock waste by anaerobic, aerobic or facultative digestion. Such impoundment predominantly receives waste from a totally housed animal feeding operation.
Liquid manure storage pits*
means earthen or lined pits located wholly or partially beneath a semi- or totally housedanimal feeding operation or at some removed location used to collect waste production.
Livestock wastes*
means animal and poultry excreta and associated feed losses, bedding, spillage or overflow from watering systems, wash and flushing waters, sprinkling waters from livestock cooling, precipitation polluted by falling on or flowing onto an animal feeding operation, and other materials polluted by livestock wastes.
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit*
means either a general permit or an individual permit, issued by the Department pursuant to Subsection 11 of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-1505. A general permit authorizes categories of disposal practices or livestock waste control facilities and covers a geographic area corresponding to existing geographic or political boundaries, though it may exclude specified areas from coverage. General permits are limited to the same or similar types of animal feeding operations or livestock waste control facilities which require the same or similar monitoring and, in the opinion of the Director of the Department of Environmental Quality, are more appropriately controlled under a NPDES general permit than under an individual permit.
Nonpoint Source
According to the EPA, "Nonpoint source pollution generally results from land runoff, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, drainage, seepage or hydrologic modification. Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution, unlike pollution from industrial and sewage treatment plants, comes from many diffuse sources. NPS pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters and ground waters." (source)
100-year, 24-hour rainfall event*
means a rainfall event with a probable recurrence interval of one in one hundred (100) years.
Process wastewater*
means water directly or indirectly used in the operation of the animal feeding operation for any or all of the following: spillage or overflow from animal or poultry watering systems; washing, cleaning, or flushing pens, barns, manure pits, or other animal feeding operation facilities; direct contact swimming, washing, or spray cooling of animals; or dust control. Process wastewater also includes spent foot bath water and any water that comes into contact with any raw materials, products, or byproducts including manure, litter, feed, milk, eggs or bedding.
Production area*
means that part of an animal feeding operation that includes the animal confinement area, the manure storage area, the raw materials storage area, and the waste containment areas. The animal confinement areas includes but is not limited to open lots, housed lots, feedlot, confinement houses, stall barns, free stall barns, milkrooms, milking centers, cowyards, barnyards, medication pens, walkers, animal walkways, and stables. The manure storage area includes but is not limited to lagoons, runoff ponds, storage sheds, stockpiles, under house or pit storages, liquid impoundments, static piles, and composting piles. The raw materials storage area includes but is not limited to feed silos, silage bunkers, and bedding materials. The waste containment area includes but is not limited to settling basins, and areas within berms and diversions that separate uncontaminated storm water. Also included in the definition of production area is any egg washing or egg processing facility, and any area used in the storage, handling, treatment, or disposal of mortalities.
Settling basin*
shall mean an individually designed low gradient, broad, flat channel with a supporting ridge on the lower side, which functions to trap and store settleable solids, both manure and sediment, for subsequent removal.
Surface water*
means all streams, lakes, ponds, impounding reservoirs, marshes, wetlands, watercourses, waterways, springs, canal systems, drainage systems, and all other bodies or accumulations of water, natural or artificial, public or private, situated wholly or partly within, or bordering upon, the State. Impounded waters in this definition do not include areas designated by the Department as wastewater treatment or wastewater retention facilities or irrigation reuse pits.
25-year, 24-hour rainfall event*
means a rainfall event with a probable recurrence interval of one in twenty-five (25) years.
Waters of the State*
means all waters within the jurisdiction of this State including all streams, lakes, ponds, impounding reservoirs, marshes, wetlands, watercourses, waterways, wells, springs, irrigation systems, drainage systems, and all other bodies or accumulations of water, surface or underground, natural or artificial, public or private, situated wholly or partly within or bordering upon the State.
*denotes a definition from Title 130.
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