CHAPTER VII. PUBLIC UTILITIESCHAPTER VII. PUBLIC UTILITIES\Article 2. Sewer Utility

For the purposes of this chapter, the following words and phrases shall mean:

(a)   ATSM means the American Society of Testing Materials or publications thereof.

(b)   BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure in five (5) days at 20o C, express in milligrams per liter (mg/L).

(c)   Building drain means that part of the lowest horizontal piping of a drainage system which receives the discharge from soil, waste, and other drainage pipes inside the walls of the building and conveys it to the building sewer beginning two (2) feet outside the building wall.

(d)   Building sewer means the extension from the building drain to the public wastewater collection system or other place of disposal.

(e)   Combined sewer means a sewer receiving both surface runoff and sewage.

(f)    Garbage means solid wastes from the domestic and commercial preparation, cooking and dispensing of food, and from the handling, storage and sale of produce.

(g)   Health officer means a person having public health responsibility by the city, by the State of Kansas and/or by Dickinson County.

(h)   Surcharge means recovery by the Governing Body from the industrial users of a treatment works and collection system of the amount allocable to the treatment and collection of wastes from such users.

(i)    Industrial users means any of the following:

(1)   Any nongovernmental, nonresidential user of a publicly owned treatment works which is identified in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual, 1972, Office of Management and Budget, as amended and supplemented under one of the following divisions:

Division A. Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Division B. Mining

Division D. Manufacturing

Division E. Transportation, Communications, Electric and Sanitary Services

Division I. Services

(2)   Any nongovernmental user of a publicly owned treatment works which discharges wastewater to the treatment works which contains toxic pollutants or poisonous solids, liquids or gases in sufficient quantity either singly or by interaction with other wastes, to contaminate the sludge of any municipal systems or to injure or to interfere with any wastewater treatment process, or which constitutes a hazard to humans or animals, creates a public nuisance, or creates any hazard in or has an adverse effect on the waters receiving any discharge from the treatment works.

(j)    Industrial wastes means the liquid wastes from industrial manufacturing processes, trade, or business as distinct from sanitary sewage.

(k)   Natural outlet means any outlet into a watercourse, pond, ditch, lake or other body of surface or groundwater.

(l)    Normal domestic waste means normal wastewater for the City in which the average concentration of suspended solids is established at two hundred seventy five milligrams per liter (275 mg/l) the average concentration of five-day BOD is established at two hundred milligrams per liter (200 mg/l); and the average concentration of oil and greases is established at one hundred milligrams per liter (100 mg/l).

(m)  Person means any individual, firm, company, association, society, corporation or group.

(n)   pH means the logarithm of the reciprocal of the weight of hydrogen ions in grams per liter of solution.

(o)   Properly shredded garbage means the wastes from the preparation, cooking, and dispensing of food which have been shredded to such a degree that all particles will be carried freely under the flow conditions normally prevailing in public sewers, with no particle greater than one-half (1/2) inch (1.27 centimeters) in any dimension.

(p)   Public sewers means a sewer in which all owners of abutting properties have equal rights and is controlled by public authority.

(q)   Replacement means expenditures for obtaining and installing equipment, accessories, or appurtenances which are necessary to maintain the capacity and performance during the service life of the treatment works for which such works were designed and constructed.

(r)    Sanitary sewer means a sewer which carries wastewater and to which storm, surface and groundwater are not intentionally admitted.

(s)   Sewer means a pipe or conduit for carrying wastewater.

(t)    Slug means any discharge of water, wastewater or industrial waste which is concentration of any given constituent or in which the quantity of flow for any period of duration longer than fifteen (15) minutes exceeds more than five (5) times the average twenty-four (24) hour concentration or flow quantities during normal operation.

(u)   Storm drain or storm sewer means a sewer which carries storm and surface waters and drainage, but excludes sewage and industrial wastes, other than unpolluted cooling water.

(v)   Suspended solids (ss) means solids that either float on the surface of, or are suspended in water, sewage or other liquids and which are removable by laboratory filtering.

(w)  Watercourse means a channel in which a flow of water occurs, either continually or intermittently.

(x)   Wastewater means a combination of the water-carried wastes from residences, business buildings, institutions and industrial establishments, together with such ground, surface and storm waters that may be present.

(y)   Wastewater collection system means each, and all, of the common lateral sewers, within a publicly-owned treatment system, which are primarily installed to receive wastewater directly from facilities which convey wastewater from individual structures or from private property, and which include service connection designed for connection with those facilities. The facilities which convey wastewater from individual structures or from private property to the public lateral sewer or its equivalent, are specifically excluded from the definition, with the exception of pumping units, and pressurized lines, for individual structures or groups of structures when such units are cost effective and are owned and maintained by the City of Abilene, Kansas.

(z)   Wastewater treatment facility means any devices and systems used in the storage, treatment, recycling and reclamation of municipal wastewater or industrial wastes of a liquid nature

(aa)  WPCF means the Water Pollution Control Federation or publications thereof.

(Ord. 3069)

The owner of any house, building or property used for human occupancy, employment, recreation or other purposes, situated within the city and abutting any street, alley or right-of-way in which there is now located or may be located in the future, a sanitary sewer of the city is hereby required to install, at the owner’s expense, toilet facilities therein, and to connect such facilities directly with the public wastewater collection system in accordance with the provisions of this article within ninety (90) days after the official notice to do so, provided that said public wastewater collection system is within one hundred fifty (150) feet of the property line. If any such person shall fail, neglect or refuse to so connect any building with the sewer system for more than ten (10) days after being notified in writing by the Board of Health, then the city may advertise for bids for the construction and making of such sewer connection and may contract with the lowest responsible bidder and cause such premises to be connected, such assessment to be made in the same manner as other special assessments are made.

(Ord. 3069)

No unauthorized person shall uncover, make any connections with or opening into, use, alter, or disturb any public sewer or appurtenance thereof without first obtaining a written permit from the Director of Public Works or an authorized representative.

(Ord. 3069)

The owner or an agent shall make application on a form furnished by the city. The permit application shall be supplemented with any plans, specifications, or other information considered pertinent in the judgment of the Director of Public Works or an authorized representative. A permit and inspection fee for a residential or commercial building sewer permit, as prescribed in section 1-310, shall be paid to the City Clerk at the time the application is filed.

(Ord. 3069; Ord. 3425)

All costs and expense incident to the installation and connection of the building sewer shall be borne by the owner. The owner shall indemnify the city from any loss or damage that may directly or indirectly be occasioned by the installation of the building sewer.

(Ord. 3069)

A separate and independent building sewer shall be provided for every building, except where one (1) building stands at the rear of another on an interior lot and no private sewer is available or can be constructed to the rear building through an adjoining alley, courtyard, or driveway, the building sewer from the front building may be extended to the rear building and the whole considered as one (1) building sewer.

(Ord. 3069)

Existing building sewers may be used in connection with new buildings only when found on examination and tested by the Director of Public Works or an authorized representative to meet all requirements of this article.

(Ord. 3069)

The size, slope, alignment, materials of construction of a building sewer, and the methods to be used in excavating and back-filling the trench, installing jointing, and testing the building sewer, shall conform to the Uniform Plumbing Code as hereinafter modified.

(a)   Minimum internal pipeline diameter for all building sewers shall be four (4) inches.

(b)   Building sewers shall be constructed of one of the following pipeline materials:

(1)   Extra-strength vitrified clay pipeline and fitting conforming to ASTM C 700

(2)   Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) gravity sewer pipe and fittings, Type PSP or PSM conforming to ASTM Standards D 3033 or D 4034. All PVC sewer pipe shall be at least schedule 40

(3)   Cast or ductile iron pipe with a minimum pressure rating of 150 pounds per square inch conforming to Federal Specification WW-P42lb, or ANSI A21.51, A21.6 or A21.8, except that iron used in the manufacture of pipe shall have minimum design strength value, in pounds per square inch, of 21,000 for bursting strength and 45,000 for modulus of rupture

(4)   ABS pipe meeting the requirements of ASTM D2661, Schedule 40 solid wall. Fittings shall be socket type meeting the requirements of ASTM D 2661 and made to ASTM D 3311, drain, waste, and vent patterns.

(Ord. 3069)

Whenever possible, the building sewer shall be brought to building at an elevation below the basement floor. In all buildings in which any building drain is too low to permit gravity flow to the public wastewater collection system, wastewater carried by such building drain shall be lifted by an approved means and discharged to the building sewer.

(Ord. 3069)

The connection of the building sewer into the public wastewater collection system shall conform to the requirements of the Uniform Plumbing Code or other applicable rules and regulations of the city. All such connections shall be made gas tight and water tight. Any deviation from the prescribed procedures and materials must be approved by the Director of Public Works or an authorized representative before installation.

(Ord. 3069)

The applicant for the building sewer permit shall notify the Director of Public Works or an authorized representative when the building sewer is ready for inspection and connection to the public sewer. The connection shall be made under the supervision of the Director of Public Works or an authorized representative within ninety-six (96) hours of the receipt of the notice.

(Ord. 3069)

All excavations for building sewer installation shall be adequately guarded with barricades and lights so as to protect the public from hazard. Streets, sidewalks, rights-of-way, and other public property disturbed in the course of the work shall be restored in a manner satisfactory to the city.

(Ord. 3069)

No person shall connect downspouts, exterior or interior foundation drains, areaway drains, or other sources of surface runoff or ground water to a building sewer or building drain which in turn is connected directly or indirectly to a public wastewater collection system.

(Ord. 3069)