§ 4-2. Definitions.

The following definitions shall apply in the interpretation and enforcement of this chapter and all rules and regulations adopted hereunder:

(1)

Air contaminant or air pollutant: Any fume, odor, smoke, particulate matter, vapor, gas or any combination thereof, but not including water vapor or steam condensate.

(2)

Air contamination source: Any source whatsoever at, from or by reason of which there is emitted or discharged into the atmosphere any air contaminant.

(3)

Air pollution: The presence in the outdoor atmosphere of one (1) or more air contaminants.

(4)

Air quality review: A review of facilities to be performed by the department in accordance with rules and regulations adopted by the board and promulgated by the manager pursuant to this chapter.

(5)

Ambient air: The surrounding or outside air.

(6)

Atmosphere: The gaseous envelope that surrounds the earth.

(7)

Benchmarking: Measuring a covered building's energy performance using the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool.

(8)

Board: The board of public health and environment of the city.

(9)

Clean-burning fuels: Compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas or hydrogen; multifuels, such as diesel/compressed natural gas fumigations; fuels containing not less than eighty-five (85) percent ethanol or methanol; electricity or any other alternative fuel that the board determines to be clean-burning.

(10)

Covered building: Any individual building in the City and County of Denver with a gross floor area of twenty-five thousand (25,000) square feet or larger except the following:

(a)

A building that was not occupied and did not have a certificate of occupancy or temporary certificate of occupancy for all twelve (12) months of the calendar year for which benchmarking is required;

(b)

A building that was not occupied, due to renovation, for all twelve (12) months of the calendar year for which benchmarking is required;

(c)

A building for which a demolition permit for the entire building has been issued and for which demolition work has commenced on or before the date the benchmarking report is due;

(d)

A building that is presently experiencing qualifying financial distress, as defined by nay of the following:

1.

The building is the subject of a qualified tax lien sale or public auction due to property tax arrearages;

2.

The buildings is controlled by a court appointed receiver; or

3.

The building has been acquired by a deed in lieu of foreclosure;

(e)

A building that had an average physical occupancy of less than sixty (60) percent throughout the calendar year for which benchmarking is required;

(f)

A building that is used primarily for industrial or agricultural processes; and

(g)

A building for which the owner can demonstrate that its energy performance is a confidential business practice that includes trade secrets, privileged, or confidential commercial information. In order to qualify for this exemption, the owner shall specifically identify the information it believes is confidential and provide a written statement describing the manner in which public disclosure would cause substantial harm to the owner's competitive position, inefficient energy usage alone will not be considered confidential commercial information.

(11)

Covered municipal building: A covered building that is owned or operated by the City and County of Denver.

(12)

Criteria pollutants: Those pollutants for which national ambient air standards have been established pursuant to the federal Clean Air Act as amended, i.e., particulate matter, sulfur oxides, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide and lead.

(13)

Department: The department of public health and environment of the city.

(14)

Device: Any machine, equipment, fabrication or contrivance the use of which causes the release of air contaminants, or that alters, contains, controls, prevents or removes air pollution from any air contamination source.

(15)

Emergency vehicle: Any surface or airborne vehicle used for the official business of the police and fire departments and any emergency medical vehicle as defined in chapter 17 of this Code.

(16)

Emission or emit: To discharge, release or to permit or cause the discharge or release of one (1) or more air contaminants into the atmosphere.

(17)

Emission offset: A net reduction in total emissions of a regulated air pollutant so that emissions of the regulated air pollutant are less than were emitted prior to instituting the offset. An offset can be accomplished by the installation of air pollution control devices or by the elimination of or changes in the method or process of manufacture in existing stationary or mobile sources or in any other way approved by the board.

(18)

Energy efficiency program: The administrative program implemented by the department requiring the benchmarking and reporting of energy consumption in commercial and multifamily buildings that are twenty-five thousand (25,000) gross square feet or larger within the City and County of Denver.

(19)

ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager: The online tool created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used to measure and track a building's energy use, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions.

(20)

Engine: Any internal combustion machine, such as found in motor vehicles, aircraft, locomotives and stationary power units, that utilizes gas or liquid fuel for combustion energy.

(21)

Existing facilities: Facilities for which application for all applicable permits and approvals required from the city have been submitted prior to the effective date of this article.

(22)

Fireplace: An opening made in a chimney and surrounded with brick, stone, metal or like material to hold a fire, and that has no specific method for recirculating heat or reducing emissions.

(23)

Fuel: Any combustible substance or material or any combination of such.

(24)

Fuel-burning equipment: Any furnace, boiler apparatus, stack or appurtenance thereto used in the process of burning fuel for the primary purpose of producing heat or power by indirect heat transfer.

(25)

Fugitive particulates: Particulate matter that cannot be readily captured and routed through a stack or air pollution control equipment that is entrained in the ambient air and is caused by human or natural activities or both, including, without limitation, construction, demolition, earth moving, grading, sandblasting, materials handling, vehicular traffic on unpaved haul roads, and wind.

(26)

Fugitive particulate control plan: The plan submitted for activities that could emit particulate matter into the atmosphere beyond the lot line of the property on which the emissions originate.

(27)

Gas: An aeroform fluid having neither independent shape nor volume but tending to expand indefinitely.

(28)

Gaseous fuel: A fuel that exists as a gas at atmospheric temperature and pressure.

(29)

Gross floor area: The total property square footage, measured between the principal exterior surfaces of the enclosing fixed walls of a building, as defined in the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager definitions.

(30)

Hazardous air pollutant: An air pollutant to which no national ambient air quality standard is applicable and that, in the judgment of the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, causes or contributes to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to result in an increase in mortality or an increase in serious, irreversible or incapacitating reversible illness or injury; and any air pollutant listed by the state or federal government as a hazardous air pollutant.

(31)

Health risk assessment: An assessment, based on accepted scientific standards and information from inventories, sampling, modeling and/or estimation techniques, of the potential human health risk from exposure to specified levels of identified hazardous air pollutants and criteria pollutants.

(32)

High-pollution day: That period of time in which the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment anticipates levels of carbon monoxide or particulates exceeding federal ambient air quality standards or when air pollution standards are exceeded for particulates, carbon monoxide or visibility.

(33)

Incinerator: A container, device or other appliance, designed, used or intended to be used for the disposal or reduction of household, commercial or industrial waste material or any commercial or industrial material by burning.

(34)

Manager: The manager of the department of public health and environment of the city.

(35)

Masonry heater: An appliance designed for or capable of burning wood, capable of and intended for domestic space heating or domestic water heating, and has been approved by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment by meeting all design criteria, and emissions standards set forth by that agency.

(36)

New facilities: Facilities and temporary facilities not exempted through regulation by the board that have not applied for all applicable permits prior to the effective date of this article.

(37)

Nuisance: The doing of or the failure to do something that allows or permits air contaminants to escape into the open air that are or tend to be detrimental to the health, comfort, safety or welfare of the public or that causes or tends to cause injury or substantial annoyance or inconvenience to persons exposed thereto or causes or tends to cause damage to property.

(38)

Opacity: The fraction of a beam of light that fails to pass through a plume of smoke or air contaminants, expressed in percentage.

(39)

Open burning: Fire or smoldering where any material is burned in the outdoor air or in an open container, receptacle, pit, vessel, chimenea, or other device designed or used for outdoor fires.

(40)

Owner: The person or entity having a legal or equitable interest in real property and its fixtures and appurtenances.

(41)

Particulate matter: Any material, except water mist or spray, that exists in a finely divided form as a liquid or solid.

(42)

Pellet stove: A wood heater that meets the following criteria:

(a)

The manufacturer makes no reference to burning cordwood in advertising or literature;

(b)

The unit is safety listed for pellet fuel only;

(c)

The unit's operating and other instruction manual states that the use of cordwood is prohibited by federal law; and

(d)

The unit must be manufactured and sold including a hopper and auger combination as integral parts.

(43)

Person: Any person, firm, association, organization, partnership, business, trust, corporation, company, contractor, supplier, installer, user or owner and shall include any municipal corporation, state or federal governmental agency, district or any officer or employee thereof.

(44)

Phase II wood stove: A wood-burning device that has been certified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency or the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

(45)

Premises: Any building, structure, land, utility or portion thereof, including all appurtenances, and shall include yards, lots, courts and properties without buildings.

(46)

Process: Any individual action, operation or treatment involving chemical, industrial or manufacturing factors and all other methods or forms of manufacturing or processing that may emit air contaminants.

(47)

Reduction: Any process utilizing heat, including but not limited to burning, rendering, drying, dehydrating, digesting, evaporating and protein concentrating that decreases the volume of material being processed.

(48)

Regulated air pollutant: A pollutant that is a criteria air pollutant or hazardous air pollutant.

(49)

Smolder: To burn and produce smoke without flame.

(50)

Solid-fuel-fired device: A device designed for the combustion of solid fuels including wood-burning devices, fireplaces, solid-fuel-fired stoves and combustion fuel furnaces that burn solid fuel. Solid-fuel-fired devices do not include natural gas-fired devices, commercial ovens or stoves used to prepare food for human consumption, public utility facilities generating steam or electricity, or solid-fuel-fired barbecue devices. The board may adopt and the manager may promulgate rules and regulations, as authorized in subsection 4-6(a), to further define solid-fuel-fired devices including exclusions to the definition for fuels or classes of technology where the board determines that the excluded fuel or technology is reliably cleaner burning than a Phase II wood stove or where the board determines that no reasonable alternative to the burning of solid fuel exists. In no case shall such definitions or exclusions be inconsistent with the requirements of chapter 24 of the Denver Revised Municipal Code.

(51)

Solid waste: Refuse consisting of paper, wood, yard wastes, food wastes, plastic, leather, rubber and such other combustibles and noncombustible glass, rock, etc., that may be generated from residential and commercial operations and from industrial sites.

(52)

Stationary source: Any building, structure, facility, equipment or installation or any combination thereof belonging to the same facility that emits or may emit any air pollutant subject to regulation under the federal Clean Air Act, that is located on one (1) or more contiguous or adjacent properties and that is owned or operated by the same person or by persons under common control.

(53)

Traffic operations: Activities necessary to direct traffic, to repair, install or maintain traffic-control devices, to paint traffic-control lanes or to pave, maintain or repair streets and sidewalks or to accomplish similar activities.

(Ord. No. 292-90, § 2, 5-29-90; Ord. No. 1018-93, § 1, 12-13-93; Ord. No. 504-94, § 1, 7-5-94; Ord. No. 1110-96, § 1, 12-16-96; Ord. No. 683-08, § 2, 12-8-08; Ord. No. 1231-16, § 1, 12-19-16; Ord. No. 427-18, § 2, 6-11-18)