N.Y. Environmental Conservation Law § 23-0101: Definitions

§ 23-0101. Definitions.

As used in this article, unless the context otherwise requires:

1. "Buffer zone" means all that area outside and surrounding the

underground gas storage reservoir which the department approves as

appropriate to protect the integrity of the reservoir, no part of which

shall be more than thirty-five hundred linear feet from the boundary

thereof.

2. "Cavity" means an open or partially open space left after a salt

has been solution mined.

3. "Commissioner" means the commissioner of environmental

conservation.

4. "Department" means the department of environmental conservation.

5. "Fund" means the oil and gas fund as established in section

eighty-three-a of the state finance law.

6. "Field" means the general area underlaid by one or more pools.

7. "Gas" means all natural, manufactured, mixed, and byproduct gas,

and all other hydrocarbons not defined as oil in this section.

8. "Local agency" means any local agency, board, authority, school

district, commission or governing body, including any county, city,

town, village or other political subdivision of the state.

9. "Metered" means the physical measurement of gas by means acceptable

to the department.

10. "Oil" means crude petroleum oil and all other hydrocarbons,

regardless of gravity, that are produced at the wellhead in liquid form

by ordinary production methods and that are not the result of

condensation of gas.

11. "Owner" means the person who has the right to drill into and

produce from a pool or a salt deposit and to appropriate the oil, gas or

salt he produces either for himself or others, or for himself and

others.

12. "Person" means and includes any natural person, corporation,

association, partnership, receiver, trustee, executor, administrator,

guardian, fiduciary, or other representative of any kind, and includes

any department, agency or instrumentality of the state or any of its

governmental subdivisions.

13. "Plug and abandon" means the plugging, replugging if necessary,

and abandonment of a well bore including the placing of all bridges,

plugs, and fluids therein and the restoration and reclamation of the

surface in the immediate vicinity to a reasonable condition consistent

with the adjacent terrain.

14. "Pool" means an underground reservoir containing a common

accumulation of oil or gas or both; each zone of a structure which is

completely separated from any other zone in the same structure is a

pool.

15. "Producer" means the owner of a well or wells capable of producing

oil, gas, or salt; or any salt or hydrocarbon mixture.

16. "Product" means any commodity made from oil or gas and includes

refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed crude, processed

crude petroleum, residue from crude petroleum, cracking stock, uncracked

fuel oil, fuel oil, treated crude oil, residuum, gas oil, casinghead

gasoline, natural-gas gasoline, kerosene, benzine, wash oil, waste oil,

blended gasoline, lubricating oil, blends or mixtures of oil with one or

more liquid products or by-products derived from oil or gas, and blends

or mixtures of two or more liquid products or by-products derived from

oil or gas, whether herein enumerated or not.

17. "Reservoir" means any underground reservoir, natural or artificial

cavern or geologic dome, sand or stratigraphic trap, whether or not

previously occupied by or containing oil or gas.

18. "Salt" means sodium chloride, evaporite or other water soluble

minerals, either in solution or as a solid or crystalline material in a

pure state or as a mixture.

19. "Solution mining" means the dissolving of an underground salt by

water to produce a brine for transport to another underground or surface

location for sale, processing or storage.

20. "Waste" means

a. Physical waste, as that term is generally understood in the oil and

gas industry;

b. The inefficient, excessive or improper use of, or the unnecessary

dissipation of reservoir energy;

c. The locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating, or producing

of any oil or gas well or wells in a manner which causes or tends to

cause reduction in the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable

from a pool under prudent and proper operations, or which causes or

tends to cause unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of

oil or gas;

d. The inefficient storing of oil or gas; and

e. The flaring of gas produced from an oil or condensate well after

the department has found that the use of the gas, on terms that are just

and reasonable, is, or will be economically feasible within a reasonable

time.