(a) These regulations shall apply to any discharge to the subsurface including the vadose zone that could render any Groundwater of the State unsuitable or degrade it for all uses for which it was suitable prior to discharge. Class I and Class V facilities are regulated pursuant to Chapters 13 and 16, respectively and are not regulated under Chapter 9.
(b) A permit for a discharge shall not be required if the discharge is part of a facility for which an application has been made to the Division for a Permit to Construct, Install or Modify Public Water Supplies and Wastewater Facilities.
(c) Discharges, for the purpose of these regulations, are described and identified as: - (i) Discharges of commercial, municipal and industrial wastes, which include but are not limited to:
- (B) Chemical, refining and manufacturing wastes;
- (C) Mining and mineral processing wastes;
- (D) Oil field wastes including water produced with oil and gas;
- (E) Power-generation wastes;
- (F) Geothermal fluid return or geothermal resource wastes;
- (G) Nuclear and radioactive wastes from any source; and
- (H) Toxic and hazardous wastes from any source.
Not included is a discharge that is further described by the Administrator as a discharge of commercial, municipal and industrial wastes of limited time and scope for the purpose of considering the effects specified in W.S. 35-11-302(a) (vi) (A) through (E), or for demonstrating compatibility between the waste and the receiver and fluids in the receiver. This type of discharge is identified as a Miscellaneous Discharge in Section 3.(c) (iii) (H).
- (ii) Special process discharges:
- (A) Special process discharges include processes or operations called in situ gasification, in situ mining, in situ leaching, borehole mining, slurry mining, solution mining or by any other descriptive terminology; which in fact consist of discharging fluids, including air, oxygen or steam, into and circulating through subsurface rock formations or mineral accumulations, or of using a hydraulic jet to slurrify a mineral commodity or of injecting fluids to fracture rock strata and/or stimulate production, or a process involving borehole fragmentation or blasting; as part of a process or operation, excluding the production of naturally occurring oil and gas, whereby a subsurface commodity is extracted remotely by activities that are conducted from the surface.
- (B) Not included is a special process discharge that is further described by the Administrator as a discharge of limited time and scope for the purpose of considering the effects specified in W.S. 35-11-302(a) (vi) (A) through (E), or for demonstrating compatibility between the injected fluid and the receiver and fluids in the receiver. This type of discharge is identified as a Miscellaneous Discharge in Section 3(c) (iii) (H).
- (iii) Discharges for the purpose of artificial recharge and miscellaneous discharges which include but are not limited to:
- (A) Groundwater replenishment to augment water supplies.
- (B) Injection(s) of chemicals used as tracers.
- (C) Discharge from drainage well(s) that accept(s) urban storm water runoff or highway runoff or excess ponded surface water.
- (D) Discharge of domestic wastes.
- (E) Discharge for subsidence control not associated with oil and gas production.
- (F) Discharge by means of a facility constructed or utilized to discharge into an abandoned underground mine for purposes other than oil and gas storage or commercial, municipal or industrial waste disposal or storage.
- (G) Discharge by means of a dry well not constructed or utilized for any other identified discharge.
- (H) Discharge of commercial, municipal and industrial waste or a special process discharge from any facility that utilizes subsurface discharges in an activity or operation of limited time and scope conducted to determine facts bearing upon the reasonableness of the pollution involved or that may result from the subsurface discharge, the economic reasonableness of reducing or eliminating the source of pollution and the effect upon the environment, pursuant to W.S. 35-11-302(a) (vi) (A) through (E); or for demonstrating the applicability of a proposed methodology, or for demonstrating that pollution can be contained and will not migrate into other receivers or to the surface; or for demonstrating compatibility between waste and the receiver and fluids in the receiver.
A miscellaneous discharge that is a special process discharge of Section 3(c) (ii) (B), for the purpose of these regulations, is the same as an in situ mining research, in a development testing project of Land Quality Rules and Regulations, Chapter 18, Section 2(a).