Sec. 27.002. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

(1) "Commission" means the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

(2) "Executive director" means the executive director of the commission.

(3) "Railroad commission" means the Railroad Commission of Texas.

(4) "Pollution" means the alteration of the physical, chemical, or biological quality of, or the contamination of, water that makes it harmful, detrimental, or injurious to humans, animal life, vegetation, or property or to public health, safety, or welfare, or impairs the usefulness or the public enjoyment of the water for any lawful or reasonable purpose.

(5) "Industrial and municipal waste" means any liquid, gaseous, solid, or other waste substance, or combination of these substances, which may cause or might reasonably be expected to cause pollution of fresh water and which result from:

(A) processes of industry, manufacturing, trade, or business;

(B) development or recovery of natural resources other than oil or gas; or

(C) disposal of sewage or other wastes of cities, towns, villages, communities, water districts, and other municipal corporations.

(6) "Oil and gas waste" means waste arising out of or incidental to drilling for or producing of oil, gas, or geothermal resources, waste arising out of or incidental to the underground storage of hydrocarbons other than storage in artificial tanks or containers, or waste arising out of or incidental to the operation of gasoline plants, natural gas processing plants, or pressure maintenance or repressurizing plants. The term includes but is not limited to salt water, brine, sludge, drilling mud, and other liquid or semi-liquid waste material.

(7) "Fluid" means a material or substance that flows or moves in a liquid, gaseous, solid, semi-solid, sludge, or other form or state.

(8) "Fresh water" means water having bacteriological, physical, and chemical properties which make it suitable and feasible for beneficial use for any lawful purpose.

(9) "Casing" means material lining used to seal off strata at and below the earth's surface.

(10) "Disposal well" means an injection well that is used for the injection of industrial and municipal waste or oil and gas waste.

(11) "Injection well" means an artificial excavation or opening in the ground made by digging, boring, drilling, jetting, driving, or some other method, and used to inject, transmit, or dispose of industrial and municipal waste or oil and gas waste into a subsurface stratum; or a well initially drilled to produce oil and gas which is used to transmit, inject, or dispose of industrial and municipal waste or oil and gas waste into a subsurface stratum; or a well used for the injection of any other fluid; but the term does not include any surface pit, surface excavation, or natural depression used to dispose of industrial and municipal waste or oil and gas waste.

(12) "Extraction of minerals" means the use of an injection well for the development or recovery of natural resources other than resources subject to the jurisdiction of the railroad commission, and includes solution mining of minerals, in situ uranium mining, and mining of sulfur by the Frasch process, but does not include the solution mining of salt when leaching a cavern for the storage of hydrocarbons.

(13), (14) Renumbered as (11) and (12) by Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 795, Sec. 1.114, eff. Sept. 1, 1985.

(15) "Hazardous waste" has the meaning assigned to that term by Section 361.003, Health and Safety Code.

(16) "Production well" means a well used to recover uranium through in situ solution recovery, including an injection well used to recover uranium. The term does not include a well used to inject waste.

(17) "Monitoring well" means a well that is used to measure or monitor the level, quality, quantity, or movement of subsurface water.

(18) "Area permit" means a permit that authorizes the construction and operation of production and monitoring wells used in operations and restoration associated with in situ recovery of uranium.

(19) "Anthropogenic carbon dioxide":

(A) means:

(i) carbon dioxide that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere that has been:

(a) stripped, segregated, or divided from any other fluid stream; or

(b) captured from an emissions source, including:

(1) an advanced clean energy project as defined by Section 382.003, Health and Safety Code, or another type of electric generation facility; or

(2) an industrial source of emissions;

(ii) any incidental associated substance derived from the source material for, or from the process of capturing, carbon dioxide described by Subparagraph (i); and

(iii) any substance added to carbon dioxide described by Subparagraph (i) to enable or improve the process of injecting the carbon dioxide; and

(B) does not include naturally occurring carbon dioxide that is recaptured, recycled, and reinjected as part of enhanced recovery operations.

(20) "Anthropogenic carbon dioxide injection well" means an injection well used to inject or transmit anthropogenic carbon dioxide into a reservoir.

(21) "Enhanced recovery operation" means the use of any process for the displacement of hydrocarbons from a reservoir other than primary recovery and includes the use of any physical, chemical, thermal, or biological process and any co-production project.

(22) "Geologic storage" means the underground storage of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in a reservoir.

(23) "Geologic storage facility" means the underground reservoir, underground equipment, injection wells, and surface buildings and equipment used or to be used for the geologic storage of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and all surface and subsurface rights and appurtenances necessary to the operation of a facility for the geologic storage of anthropogenic carbon dioxide. The term includes any reasonable and necessary areal buffer and subsurface monitoring zones, pressure fronts, and other areas as may be necessary for this state to receive delegation of any federal underground injection control program relating to the storage of carbon dioxide. The term does not include a pipeline used to transport carbon dioxide from the facility at which the carbon dioxide is captured to the geologic storage facility. The storage of carbon dioxide incidental to or as part of enhanced recovery operations does not in itself automatically render a facility a geologic storage facility.

(24) "Oil or gas" means oil, natural gas, or gas condensate.

(25) "Reservoir" means a natural or artificially created subsurface sedimentary stratum, formation, aquifer, cavity, void, or coal seam.

Amended by Acts 1977, 65th Leg., p. 2207, ch. 870, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1977; Acts 1981, 67th Leg., p. 3161, ch. 830, Sec. 1, eff. June 17, 1981; Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 566, Sec. 14, eff. Sept. 1, 1985; Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 795, Sec. 1.114, eff. Sept. 1, 1985; Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 14, Sec. 284(76), eff. Sept. 1, 1991; Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., 1st C.S., ch. 3, Sec. 1.067, eff. Aug. 12, 1991.

Amended by:

Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1118 (H.B. 3838), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2007.

Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 224 (S.B. 1387), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2009.