South Carolina § 48-1-95 - Wastewater utilities; procedures for significant spills.

§ 48-1-95. Wastewater utilities; procedures for significant spills.

(A) As used in this section:

(1) "Action plan" or "plan" means a schedule for implementing and completing repairs, upgrades, and improvements needed to minimize future repetitive significant spills of untreated or partially treated domestic sewage.

(2) "Capacity, Management, Operation, and Maintenance or 'CMOM' plan" means a comprehensive, dynamic framework for wastewater utilities to identify and incorporate widely accepted wastewater industry practices to:

(a) better manage, operate, and maintain collection systems;

(b) investigate capacity constrained areas of the collection system; and

(c) respond to sanitary sewer overflow events.

(3) "Comprehensive review" or "review" means a complete technical assessment of the components and operation of a sewage system or its treatment works that are contributing to, or may be contributing to, repetitive significant spills of untreated or partially treated domestic sewage.

(4) "Department" means the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

(5) "Significant spill" means a net discharge from a wastewater utility of at least five thousand gallons of untreated or partially treated domestic sewage that could cause a serious adverse impact on the environment or public health. "Significant spill" does not include spills caused by a natural disaster, direct act of a third party, or other act of God.

(6) "Wastewater utility" or "utility" means the operator or owner of a sewage collection system or its treatment works providing sewer service to the public. "Wastewater utility" does not include manufacturers, electric utilities, agricultural operations, and wastewater treatment systems located on property owned by the federal government.

(B) Utilities must verbally notify the department of any significant spill within twenty-four hours and by written submission within five days.

(C) Upon receiving notice of a significant spill from a wastewater utility, the department must determine whether the responsible wastewater utility has had more than two significant spills per one hundred miles of its sewage collection system, in the aggregate and excluding private service laterals, during the twelve-month period up to and including the date of the significant spill.

(D)(1) If the wastewater utility has had more than two significant spills per one hundred miles of its aggregate collection system miles during a twelve-month period, the department shall issue an order directing the utility to complete a comprehensive review of the sewage system and treatment works facility identified pursuant to subsection (C), or if the wastewater utility has a Capacity, Management, Operations, and Maintenance plan in place directing the utility to update this plan, the order must include, but is not limited to:

(a) the submission of the findings of the comprehensive review or CMOM update; and

(b) the required implementation of any plans to minimize the recurrence of such significant spills.

(2) The comprehensive review, pursuant to item (1), must be performed by a licensed South Carolina professional engineer.

(3) Unless the department's order is being appealed, the comprehensive review or CMOM update must be initiated by the wastewater utility's owner within two months of receiving an order from the department or, in the case of an appeal, within two months from the date the order becomes final and nonappealable.

(E) The department shall require that all wastewater utilities provide public notice of any significant spill of five thousand gallons or more within twenty-four hours of the discovery. Where the responsible wastewater utility does not provide this notice, in addition to any enforcement response, the department shall provide public notice of the significant spill.

(F) Nothing in this section contravenes the department's ability to undertake enforcement action under the Pollution Control Act, Chapter 1, Title 48, or any other state or federal law.

HISTORY: 2012 Act No. 109, SECTION 1, eff February 1, 2012.