(1) "Department" means the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

(2) "District" means any soil and water conservation district created pursuant to Chapter 9 of this title.

(3) "Local government" means any county, municipality, or any combination of counties or municipalities, acting through a joint program pursuant to the provisions of this chapter.

(4) "Implementing agency" means the department, local government, or conservation district with the responsibility for receiving stormwater management and sediment control plans for review and approval, reviewing plans, issuing permits for land disturbing activities, and conducting inspections and enforcement actions in a specified jurisdiction.

(5) "Responsible personnel" means any foreman, superintendent, or similar individual who is the on-site person in charge of land disturbing activities.

(6) "Designated Watershed" means a watershed designated by a local government and approved by the Department of Health and Environmental Control and identified as having an existing or potential stormwater, sediment control, or nonpoint source pollution problem.

(7) "Erosion" means the wearing away of land surface by the action of wind, water, gravity, ice, or any combination of those forces.

(8) "Land disturbing activity" means any use of the land by any person that results in a change in the natural cover or topography that may cause erosion and contribute to sediment and alter the quality and quantity of stormwater runoff.

(9) "Person" means an individual, partnership, firm, association, joint venture, public or private corporation, trust, estate, commission, board, public or private institution, utility, cooperative, electric supplier, municipality, interstate body, the federal government, or other legal entity.

(10) "Sediment" means solid particulate matter, both mineral and organic, that has been or is being transported by water, air, ice, or gravity from its site of origin.

(11) "Stormwater management" means, for:

(a) quantitative control, a system of vegetative or structural measures, or both, that control the increased volume and rate of stormwater runoff caused by manmade changes to the land;

(b) qualitative control, a system of vegetative, structural, or other measures that reduce or eliminate pollutants that might otherwise be carried by stormwater runoff.

(12) "Stormwater Management and Sediment Control Plan" means a set of drawings, other documents, and supporting calculations submitted by a person as a prerequisite to obtaining a permit to undertake a land disturbing activity, which contains all of the information and specifications required by an implementing agency.

(13) "Stormwater runoff" means direct response of a watershed to precipitation and includes the surface and subsurface runoff that enters a ditch, stream, storm sewer, or other concentrated flow during and following the precipitation.

(14) "Stormwater utility" means an administrative organization that has been created for the purposes of planning, designing, constructing, and maintaining stormwater management, sediment control, and flood control programs and projects.

(15) "Watershed master plan" means a plan for a designated watershed that analyzes the impact of existing and future land uses and land disturbing activities in the entire watershed and includes strategies to reduce nonpoint source pollution, to manage stormwater runoff and control flooding. The plan must be developed for the entire watershed, regardless of political boundaries, and must include appropriate physical, institutional, economic, and administrative data needed to justify the plan.

(16) "Subdivision", unless otherwise defined in an ordinance adopted by a local government pursuant to § 6-7-1010, means all divisions of a tract or parcel of land into two or more lots, building sites, or other divisions, or parcels less than five acres, for the purpose, whether immediate or future, of sale, legacy, or building development, or includes all division of land involving a new street or a change in existing streets, and includes resubdivision and, where appropriate, in the context, shall relate to the process of subdividing or to the land or area subdivided;

(17) "Person responsible for the land disturbing activity" means:

(a) the person who has or represents having financial or operational control over the land disturbing activity; and/or

(b) the landowner or person in possession or control of the land who directly or indirectly allowed the land disturbing activity or has benefited from it or who has failed to comply with any provision of the act, these regulations, or any order or local ordinance adopted pursuant to this chapter as imposes a duty upon him.

(18) "Nonpoint source pollution" means pollution contained in stormwater runoff from ill-defined diffuse sources.

(19) "Stop work order" means an order directing the person responsible for the land disturbing activity to cease and desist all or any portion of the work which violates the provisions of this chapter.