Virginia Code 62.1-104: Definitions
(1) Except as modified below, the definitions contained in Title 1 shall apply in this chapter.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 62.1-104
- City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
(2) “Board” means the State Water Control Board. However, when used outside the context of the promulgation of regulations, including regulations to establish general permits, pursuant to this chapter, “Board” means the Department of Environmental Quality.
(3) “Impounding structure” means a man-made device, whether a dam across a watercourse or other structure outside a watercourse, used or to be used for the authorized storage of flood waters for subsequent beneficial use.
(4) “Watercourse” means a natural channel having a well-defined bed and banks and in which water flows when it normally does flow. For the purposes hereof they shall be limited to rivers, creeks, streams, branches, and other watercourses which are nonnavigable in fact and which are wholly within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.
(5) “Riparian land” is land which is contiguous to and touches a watercourse. It does not include land outside the watershed of the watercourse. Real property under common ownership and which is not separated from riparian land by land of any other ownership shall likewise be deemed riparian land, notwithstanding that such real property is divided into tracts and parcels which may not bound upon the watercourse.
(6) “Riparian owner” is an owner of riparian land.
(7) “Average flow” means the average discharge of a stream at a particular point and normally is expressed in cubic feet per second. It may be determined from actual measurements or computed from the most accurate information available.
(8) “Diffused surface waters” are those which, resulting from precipitation, flow down across the surface of the land until they reach a watercourse, after which they become parts of streams.
(9) “Floodwaters” means water in a stream which is over and above the average flow.
(10) “Court” means the circuit court of the county or city in which an impoundment is located or proposed to be located.
Code 1950, § 62-94.1; 1956, c. 632; 1958, c. 638; 1968, c. 659; 1977, c. 26; 2022, c. 356.