In this article, unless the context otherwise requires:

1. "Applicant" means any individual, employee, officer, managing body, trust, firm, joint stock company, consortium, public or private corporation, including a government corporation, partnership or association, this state, a political subdivision of this state, or a commission of the United States government or a federal facility, an interstate body or any other entity that applies for a settlement under either Section 49-292.01 or 49-292.02.

2. "Community" means the broad spectrum of persons determined by the director to be within an existing or proposed site placed on the registry pursuant to Section 49-287.01.

3. "Community involvement area" means the geographical area that is within a site placed on the registry pursuant to Section 49-287.01 and additional geographic areas as found appropriate in the director’s discretion.

4. "Dispose" means the deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking or placing of any pollutant into or on any land or water so that the pollutant or any constituent of the pollutant may enter the environment or be discharged into any waters, including aquifers.

5. "Eligible party" means a person who enters into a written agreement with the director to implement and complete a remedial investigation and feasibility study with respect to a site or portion of a site that was on the annual priority list on May 1, 1997 or any other person who incurs costs for a remedial action that is in substantial compliance with Section 49-282.06 as determined by the director.

6. "Facility" means any land, building, installation, structure, equipment, device, conveyance, area, source, activity or practice.

7. "Fund" means the water quality assurance revolving fund established by section 49-282.

8. "Hazardous substance" has the same meaning prescribed in section 49-201 but does not include petroleum as defined in section 49-1001, except to the extent that a constituent of petroleum is subject to Section 49-283.02.

9. "Nonrecoverable costs" means any costs incurred by the director after June 30, 1997:

(a) That consist of salaries and benefits paid to state employees, including direct and indirect costs, except as specifically provided in Section 49-282.05, section 49-285, subsection B, Section 49-285.01, Section 49-287.01, Section 49-287.06, subsection H and Section 49-287.07 and for epidemiological studies conducted by the department of health services.

(b) For activities conducted pursuant to Section 49-287.02.

(c) For water monitoring activities conducted pursuant to section 49-225.

(d) For well inspections, but not other remedial actions, to determine whether vertical cross-contamination is resulting from a well pursuant to section 45-605 or 49-282.04.

(e) For rulemaking.

10. "Orphan shares" means the shares of the cost of a remedial action that are allocated to an identified person who is determined to be a responsible party and that are not paid or otherwise satisfied by that responsible party due to any of the following:

(a) The party cannot be located or no longer exists.

(b) The party has entered into a qualified business settlement pursuant to this article.

(c) The party has entered into a settlement pursuant to this article for an amount that is less than its allocated share.

(d) The director has determined that the share allocated to the party is uncollectible.

11. "Release" means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping or disposing into the environment but excludes:

(a) Any release that results in exposure to persons solely within a workplace, with respect to a claim that such persons may assert against the employer of such persons.

(b) Emissions from the engine exhaust of any motor vehicle, rolling stock, aircraft, vessel or pipeline pumping station engine.

(c) Release of source, by-product or special nuclear material, as those terms are defined in section 30-651, resulting from the operation of a production or utilization facility as defined in the atomic energy act of 1954 (68 Stat. 919; 42 United States Code §§ 2011 through 2297), which is subject to the regulatory authority of the United States nuclear regulatory commission as specified in that act, and the agreement, dated March 30, 1967, entered into between the governor of this state and the United States atomic energy commission pursuant to section 30-656 and section 274 of the atomic energy act of 1954, as amended.

(d) The normal application of fertilizer.

12. "Remedial actions" means those actions that are reasonable, necessary, cost-effective and technically feasible in the event of the release or threat of release of hazardous substances into the environment, such actions as may be necessary to investigate, monitor, assess and evaluate such release or threat of release, actions of remediation, removal or disposal of hazardous substances or taking such other actions as may be necessary to prevent, minimize or mitigate damage to the public health or welfare or to the environment that may otherwise result from a release or threat of release of a hazardous substance. Remedial actions include the use of biostimulation with indigenous microbes and bioaugmentation using microbes that are nonpathogenic, that are nonopportunistic and that are naturally occurring. Remedial actions may include community information and participation costs and providing an alternative drinking water supply.

13. "Remedy" means a remedial action selected in a record of decision issued pursuant to Section 49-287.04.

14. "Site" means the geographical areal extent of contamination.

15. "Vertical cross-contamination" means the vertical migration of released hazardous substances in groundwater through a well from an aquifer or aquifer layer to another aquifer or aquifer layer.