Section 114.52. Definitions.

  In this subchapter:

(1)  "Advanced coursework" means education that is beyond the basic knowledge of a particular aspect of wastewater treatment. It concentrates advanced wastewater studies in only a few subjects in blocks of a minimum of 20, 40, 60, or 80 hours. Technical talks or presentations at meetings, single- or part-day classes, or training sessions, seminars, or conferences are not included in this definition.

(2)  "Associates degree" means a wastewater treatment related degree earned at a 2-year technical college.

(3)  "Certificate" means a printed document issued by the department, pursuant to this subchapter, stating that the operator named therein has met the competency requirements for one or more operator levels and subclasses.

(4)  "Certified operator" means a person who has meet the requirements of this subchapter and has been issued a certificate by the department to work at a given level and subclasses of wastewater treatment plants.

(5)  "Department" means the department of natural resources.

(6)  "Direct responsible charge" means having responsibility for providing on-site technical direction in the operations of a wastewater treatment plant.

(7)  "Experience" means the daily hands-on operation and maintenance of a wastewater treatment plant as provided in pars. (a) , (b) , and (c) . Treatment plant managers providing daily on-site technical supervision of the operator or operators performing those tasks may be eligible for claiming experience.

(a) The first twelve months of claimed experience shall be subclass specific.

(b) Subsequent months of claimed experience may be any general wastewater operational experience.

(c) One year of experience is based on full-time employment at a treatment plant or 1,000 hours of cumulative experience, over a minimum of 12 months, for part-time operators.

(8)  "Graduate degree" means an advanced degree, M.S. or Ph.D., from an accredited college or university with graduate studies and emphasis in wastewater treatment or water pollution control engineering.

(9)  "Health and safety training" means classes relating to wastewater treatment plant operations and maintenance and includes but not limited to confined space, excavation, hearing conservation, water safety, blood-borne pathogens, CPR — First Aid, mechanical and electrical safety, fall protection, hazardous plant chemicals as well as others.

(10)  "Industrial wastewater treatment plant" means a privately owned wastewater treatment plant for treating liquid wastes resulting from any process of industry, manufacture, trade, or business or the development of any natural resources.

(11)  "Level" means the basic or advanced classification assigned to a wastewater treatment plant operator pursuant to this subchapter.

(12)  "Major contributing industry" means an industrial or commercial facility that is a user of a municipally owned wastewater treatment plant, and has a waste which the department determines has, or may have, a significant impact, either singly or in combination with other wastes, on a wastewater treatment plant or on the quality of effluent from a wastewater treatment plant.

(13)  "Mechanical plant" means a plant that is designed and constructed with a series of steel or concrete basins using pumps, pipes, and other equipment to actively convey and treat wastewater. Pond, lagoon, or natural systems are not part of this definition.

(14)  "Operate" means to be in direct responsible charge of a subclass or subclasses of operations at a wastewater treatment plant and a sanitary sewage collection system.

(15)  "Operator-in-charge" means the person designated by the owner of the wastewater treatment plant to be in direct responsible charge of a subclass of operations of a treatment plant or of a sanitary sewage collection system and involved in hands-on day-to-day operations.

(16)  "Owner" means the state, county, town, sanitary district, city, village, metropolitan sewerage district, corporation, firm, company, institution, association, utility district, school district, sewerage commission, or individual owning or operating a WPDES permitted wastewater treatment plant.

(17)  "Satellite sewage collection system" means a municipally owned or private sewage collection system that conveys wastewater to another sewerage system which provides the wastewater treatment.

(18)  "Sanitary sewage collection system" means the common sanitary sewers, interceptor sewers, pump stations and supporting equipment in a community that receive wastewater from buildings and conveys it to a wastewater treatment plant.

(19)  "Subclass" means a letter assigned a treatment plant based upon a particular type of treatment process at the plant and to the letter assigned to a person based on passing a subclass examination for a specific operational process.

(20)  "Tertiary phosphorus removal" means the advanced physical and chemical removal of phosphorus to achieve very low phosphorus concentrations not achievable by conventional methods.

(21)  "Undergraduate degree" means a Bachelor's degree earned at a 4-year accredited college or university in which at least 240 hours were wastewater treatment related.

(22)  "Wastewater treatment plant" means a facility that provides for the treatment of sanitary or industrial wastewater or both. The following types of facilities are excluded from operator certification:

(a) Facilities defined as private sewage systems in s. 145.01 (12) , Stats.

(b) Pretreatment facilities which discharge to a public sewer system for treatment.

(c) Industrial wastewater treatment which consists solely of a land disposal system.

(d) Digesters at agricultural operations that reuse, recycle or landspread the treated wastes.

(e) Concentrated aquatic production facilities (fish hatcheries) in which no biological treatment process is utilized.

(23)  "WPDES permit" means a permit issued to a publicly owned treatment plant under s. 283.31 , Stats., for the purposes of controlling pollutant discharge.

History: CR 13-054 : cr. Register June 2014 No. 702 , eff. 7-1-15; correction in (7) (intro.) made under s. 35.17 , Stats., Register June 2014 No. 702 .