Terms Used In Iowa Code > Chapter 455H - Land Recycling and Remediation Standards

• Affected area: means any real property affected, suspected of being affected, or modeled to be likely affected by a release occurring at an enrolled site. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Affiliate: means a corporate parent, subsidiary, or predecessor of a participant, a co-owner or cooperator of a participant, a spouse, parent, or child of a participant, an affiliated corporation or enterprise of a participant, or any other person substantially involved in the legal affairs or management of a participant, as defined by the department. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Background levels: means concentrations of hazardous substances naturally occurring and generally present in the environment in the vicinity of an enrolled site or an affected area and not the result of releases. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• Bequest: Property gifted by will.
• Certificate: means a certificate of title. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Child: includes child by adoption. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Commission: means the environmental protection commission created under section 455A. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Department: means the department of natural resources created under section 455A. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Director: means the director of the department of natural resources appointed under section 455A. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Enrolled site: means any property which has been or is suspected to be the site of or affected by a release and which has been enrolled pursuant to this chapter by a participant. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Environmental claim: means a civil action for damages for environmental harm and includes a civil action under this chapter for recovery of the costs of conducting a response action, but does not include a civil action for damages for a breach of contract or another agreement between persons or for a breach of a warranty that exists pursuant to the Code or common law of this state. See Iowa Code 455H.304
• Environmental covenant: means a servitude arising under an environmental response project that imposes activity and use limitations as defined in section 455I. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Environmental harm: means injury, death, loss, or threatened loss to a person or property caused by exposure to or the release of a hazardous substance. See Iowa Code 455H.304
• Escheat: Reversion of real or personal property to the state when 1) a person dies without leaving a will and has no heirs, or 2) when the property (such as a bank account) has been inactive for a certain period of time. ^{Source: OCC}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• following: when used by way of reference to a chapter or other part of a statute mean the next preceding or next following chapter or other part. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Inter vivos: Transfer of property from one living person to another living person.
• Joint tenancy: A form of property ownership in which two or more parties hold an undivided interest in the same property that was conveyed under the same instrument at the same time. A joint tenant can sell his (her) interest but not dispose of it by will. Upon the death of a joint tenant, his (her) undivided interest is distributed among the surviving joint tenants.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Noncancer health risk: means the potential for adverse systemic or toxic effects caused by exposure to noncarcinogenic hazardous substances expressed as the hazard quotient for a hazardous substance. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Participant: means any person who enrolls property pursuant to this chapter. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Person: means an individual, partnership, firm, corporation, or association. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• property: includes personal and real property. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Protected groundwater source: means a saturated bed, formation, or group of formations which has a hydraulic conductivity of at least forty-four-hundredths meters per day and a total dissolved solids concentration of less than two thousand five hundred milligrams per liter. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Protected party: means any of the following:
   a. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Release: means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment of a hazardous substance, including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles containing any hazardous substance, but excludes all of the following:
   a. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Response action: includes , but is not limited to, investigation, excavation, removal, disposal, cleansing of groundwaters or surface waters, natural biodegradation, institutional controls, technological controls, or site management practices. See Iowa Code 455H.103
• Rule: includes "regulation". See Iowa Code 4.1
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• state: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories, and the words "United States" may include the said district and territories. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Tenancy in common: A type of property ownership in which two or more individuals have an undivided interest in property. At the death of one tenant in common, his (her) fractional percentage of ownership in the property passes to the decedent
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• undertaking: means a promise or security in any form. See Iowa Code 4.1
• United States: includes all the states. See Iowa Code 4.1
• Use: means to operate, navigate, or employ a vessel. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• Vessel: means every description of watercraft, other than a seaplane, used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water or ice. See Iowa Code 462A.2
• year: means twelve consecutive months. See Iowa Code 4.1