For purposes of this article, the following definitions apply:

(a)  “Agricultural drainage water” means subsurface water or perched groundwater which is drained from beneath agricultural lands and which results from agricultural irrigation.

(b)  “Free liquids” mean liquids which readily separate from the solid portion of a hazardous waste under ambient temperature and pressure.

(c)  “Hazardous waste landfill” means a disposal facility, or part of a facility, where hazardous waste is placed in or onto land and which is not a land treatment facility, a surface impoundment, or an injection well.

(d)  “Land disposal” means placement in or on the land, and includes, but is not limited to, placement in a landfill, surface impoundment, waste pile, injection well, land treatment facility, salt dome formation, salt bed formation, underground mine or cave, or concrete vault or bunker intended for disposal purposes.

(e)  Notwithstanding Section 25123.5, and for purposes of this article only, “treatment” means any method, technique, or process, including incineration, occurring at authorized facilities that changes the physical, chemical, or biological character or composition of any hazardous waste and, by that change, the waste becomes nonhazardous, significantly less hazardous, or more suitable for land disposal because of removal or substantial reduction of undesirable properties, such as toxicity, mobility, persistence, reactivity, bioaccumulation, flammability, or corrosivity. “Treatment” does not include any of the following, to the extent that one or more of the following are the only methods which are used:

(1)  Solidification of hazardous waste by the addition of absorbent material that produces a change only in the physical character of the waste, without a corresponding change in the chemical character of the waste.

(2)  Treatment occurring directly in or on the land, such as land treatment, except that treatment may include in situ treatment necessary for site mitigation.

(3)  Dilution of hazardous waste by the addition of nonhazardous material.

(4)  Evaporation in a surface impoundment.

(f)  “Treated hazardous waste” means a hazardous waste that has been subject to treatment, as specified in subdivision (e), that meets treatment standards established by the department pursuant to Section 25179.6, and applicable treatment standards adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency pursuant to Section 3004(m) of the federal act (42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(m)). “Treated hazardous waste” also includes a hazardous waste that meets all applicable treatment standards without prior treatment.

(g)  “Designated treatment technology” means a hazardous waste environmental technology certified by the department in accordance with Section 25200.1.5 that the department has also designated, pursuant to Section 25179.7, as a method which will treat specified types of hazardous waste to substantially reduce or eliminate the risk to human health and the environment posed by that waste.

(h)  “Treatable waste” means a type or category of hazardous waste, specified by the department, for which there is a designated treatment technology. A waste becomes a treatable waste one year after designation of the first treatment technology found by the department to be suitable for treatment of that type or category of hazardous waste pursuant to Section 25179.7.

(Repealed and added by Stats. 1995, Ch. 638, Sec. 15. Effective January 1, 1996.)