ORS 465.200: Definitions.

As used in ORS 465.200 to 465.485 and 465.900: (1) “Claim” means a demand in writing for a sum certain. (2) “Commission” means the Environmental Quality Commission. (3) “Department” means the Department of Environmental Quality. (4) “Director” means the Director of the Department of Environmental Quality. (5) “Environment” includes the waters of the state, any drinking water supply, any land surface and subsurface strata and ambient air. (6) “Facility” means any building, structure, installation, equipment, pipe or pipeline including any pipe into a sewer or publicly owned treatment works, well, pit, pond, lagoon, impoundment, ditch, landfill, storage container, above ground tank, underground storage tank, motor vehicle, rolling stock, aircraft, or any site or area where a hazardous substance has been deposited, stored, disposed of, or placed, or otherwise come to be located and where a release has occurred or where there is a threat of a release, but does not include any consumer product in consumer use or any vessel. (7) “Fund” means the Hazardous Substance Remedial Action Fund established by ORS 465.381. (8) “Guarantor” means any person, other than the owner or operator, who provides evidence of financial responsibility for an owner or operator under ORS 465.200 to 465.485 and 465.900. (9) “Hazardous substance” means: (a) Hazardous waste as defined in ORS 466.005. (b) Any substance defined as a hazardous substance pursuant to section 101(14) of the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, P.L. 96-510, as amended, and P.L. 99-499. (c) Oil. (d) Any substance designated by the commission under ORS 465.400. (10) “Natural resources” includes but is not limited to land, fish, wildlife, biota, air, surface water, ground water, drinking water supplies and any other resource owned, managed, held in trust or otherwise controlled by the State of Oregon or a political subdivision of the state. (11) “Oil” includes gasoline, crude oil, fuel oil, diesel oil, lubricating oil, oil sludge or refuse and any other petroleum-related product, or waste or fraction thereof that is liquid at a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit and pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch absolute. (12) “Owner or operator” means any person who owned, leased, operated, controlled or exercised significant control over the operation of a facility. “Owner or operator” does not include a person, who, without participating in the management of a facility, holds indicia of ownership primarily to protect a security interest in the facility. (13) “Person” means an individual, trust, firm, joint stock company, joint venture, consortium, commercial entity, partnership, association, corporation, commission, state and any agency thereof, political subdivision of the state, interstate body or the federal government including any agency thereof. (14) “Release” means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping or disposing into the environment including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers and other closed receptacles containing any hazardous substance, or threat thereof, but excludes: (a) Any release that results in exposure to a person solely within a workplace, with respect to a claim that the person may assert against the person’s employer under ORS chapter 656; (b) Emissions from the engine exhaust of a motor vehicle, rolling stock, aircraft, vessel or pipeline pumping station engine; (c) Any release of source, by-product or special nuclear material from a nuclear incident, as those terms are defined in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, if the release is subject to requirements with respect to financial protection established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under section 170 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, or, for the purposes of ORS 465.260 or any other removal or remedial action, any release of source by-product or special nuclear material from any processing site designated under section 102(a)(1) or 302(a) of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978; and (d) The normal application of fertilizer. (15)(a) “Remedial action” means those actions consistent with a permanent remedial action taken instead of or in addition to removal actions in the event of a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance into the environment, to prevent or minimize the release of a hazardous substance so that it does not migrate to cause substantial danger to present or future public health, safety, welfare or the environment. (b) “Remedial action” includes, but is not limited to: (A) Such actions at the location of the release as storage, confinement, perimeter protection using dikes, trenches or ditches, clay cover, neutralization, cleanup of released hazardous substances and associated contaminated materials, recycling or reuse, diversion, destruction, segregation of reactive wastes, dredging or excavations, repair or replacement of leaking containers, collection of leachate and runoff, on-site treatment or incineration, provision of alternative drinking and household water supplies, and any monitoring reasonably required to assure that the actions protect the public health, safety, welfare and the environment. (B) Offsite transport and offsite storage, treatment, destruction or secure disposition of hazardous substances and associated, contaminated materials. (C) Such actions as may be necessary to monitor, assess, evaluate or investigate a release or threat of release. (16) “Remedial action costs” means reasonable costs which are attributable to or associated with a removal or remedial action at a facility, including but not limited to the costs of administration, investigation, legal or enforcement activities, contracts and health studies. (17) “Removal” means the cleanup or removal of a released hazardous substance from the environment, such actions as may be necessary taken in the event of the threat of release of a hazardous substance into the environment, such actions as may be necessary to monitor, assess and evaluate the release or threat of release of a hazardous substance, the disposal of removed material, or the taking of such other actions as may be necessary to prevent, minimize or mitigate damage to the public health, safety, welfare or to the environment, that may otherwise result from a release or threat of release. “Removal” also includes but is not limited to security fencing or other measures to limit access, provision of alternative drinking and household water supplies, temporary evacuation and housing of threatened individuals and action taken under ORS 465.260. (18) “Transport” means the movement of a hazardous substance by any mode, including pipeline and in the case of a hazardous substance that has been accepted for transportation by a common or contract carrier, the term “transport” shall include any stoppage in transit that is temporary, incidental to the transportation movement, and at the ordinary operating convenience of a common or contract carrier, and any such stoppage shall be considered as a continuity of movement and not as the storage of a hazardous substance. (19) “Underground storage tank” has the meaning given that term in ORS 466.706. (20) “Waters of the state” has the meaning given that term in ORS 468B.005. [Formerly 466.540; 1995 c.427 §1; 2001 c.495 §19; 2003 c.407 §§23,24; 2023 c.262 §3]