Water Plan - Definitions

Built environment: The developed landscapes that include engineered water systems (stormwater conveyance, water supply utilities, subsurface sewage treatment systems, and wastewater systems and utilities).

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs): Substances and microorganisms, including manufactured or naturally occurring physical, chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials, which are known or anticipated in the environment, that may pose newly identified or re-emerging risks to human health, aquatic life, or the environment.

Drinking Water Supply Management Areas (DWSMAs): Areas containing the wellhead protection area but outlined by clear boundaries, like roads or property lines. The DWSMA is managed in a wellhead protection plan, usually by a city. 

Ecosystem services: Ecosystem services are the benefits that nature provides to human well-being: clean air and water, protection from natural disasters, fisheries, crop pollination and control of pests and disease, and outdoor places for recreation, solitude, and renewal.

Equity (defined by the Met Council): Historically excluded communities – especially Black communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color – have measurable improved outcomes through an intentional and consistent practice of adapting policies, systems, services, and spending so that they contribute to the repair of both historic and ongoing injustice.

Inflow and infiltration: Stormwater and groundwater that makes its way into sanitary sewer pipes, mixes with sanitary wastewater, and gets unnecessarily treated at water resource recovery facilities. Inflow is clear water that enters the wastewater system through rain leaders, sump pumps, or foundation drains that are illegally connected to sewer lines. The largest amount of inflow occurs during heavy rainstorms. Infiltration is groundwater that seeps into cracked or broken wastewater pipes.

Local: Local units of government are cities, townships, counties, and special districts such as lake improvement, special service, soil and water conservation, watershed, school, and regional development commissions.

Local control: The authority of local governments to make decisions and regulations to manage their own affairs. For example, water supply is an area of local control driven by local needs and decisions.  

Local controls: Policies, ordinances, programs, and incentives to encourage desired behaviors. Examples are stormwater infiltration guidance, water efficiency grants, and others.

Reclaimed water: Wastewater that has been treated to a higher standard for beneficial use. 

Recreational water: Waters that are used for swimming, fishing, boating, and other activities for enjoyment, rest, and relaxation.

Regional benefit (wastewater): If an action or decision related to the regional wastewater system supports regional growth, benefits more than one community, is cost effective, and enhances knowledge and experience that can be used to further our mission and goals.

Resource recovery: The process of recovering materials or energy from a potential waste stream and recycling them for a second use or into the environment. Some methods include reclaimed water for reuse or wastewater treatment producing clean water.

Rural Service Area: Communities in the region that have a range of uses including cultivated farmland, vineyards, hobby farms, gravel mines, woodlands, small towns, scattered and clustered housing, open spaces, and significant expanses of the region’s natural resources. Investments in regional services are limited in the Rural Service Area, except for in the regional parks system. The Rural Service Area recognizes the desire for rural and small-town residential choices and protects the vital agricultural lands and natural amenities of the area. The Rural Service Area is divided into four community designations: Agricultural Area, Diversified Rural Area, Rural Residential, and Rural Center.

Source water: The bodies of water that provide water to public water supplies and privately owned wells, including groundwater, lakes, and rivers.

Urban Service Area: Communities in the region with the highest level of investment in regional and local services, including regional wastewater services. These communities include a variety of residential neighborhoods, housing types, and densities, along with a varying mix of commercial and industrial areas. The Urban Service Area is divided into four community designations: Urban, Urban Edge, Suburban, and Suburban Edge.

Wastewater reuse: The practice of treating wastewater from a water resource recovery facility or wastewater treatment plant to a higher standard for beneficial use before releasing it back into the water cycle.

Water sustainability: The responsible management of water resources (ground and surface water) to not harm ecosystems, degrade water quality, and to ensure their availability for current and future generations while ensuring a balance between economic, environmental, and social well-being. 

Water supply sustainability: Water use is sustainable when the use does not harm ecosystems, degrade water quality and quantity, or compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The region’s water supply may be considered sustainable when:

• Water use does not exceed the estimated limits of available sources, taking into account:
  • Impacts to aquifer levels
  • Impacts to surface waters, including diversions of groundwater that affect them, to maintain flows and water levels
  • Impacts to groundwater flow directions in areas where groundwater contamination has, or may, result in risks to public health
• Planned land use and related water demand is consistent with the original long-term design capacity for water supply infrastructure, when that design capacity is based on sustainable sources.
• Water users are efficient in their day-to-day use and are prepared to forego nonessential water use during emergencies.
• Risk to infrastructure and public health is managed through ongoing assessment and investment.

Water benefits: The range of useful and advantageous outcomes experienced by nature, society, communities, and individuals related to water. Benefits may be social, cultural, economic, and health related. Benefits may be experienced over small or broad areas, over short or longer periods of time, and by single or multiple generations.

Water conservation: Any beneficial reduction in water losses, waste, or use.

Water resource recovery facility: Updated term for wastewater treatment plant. 

Water services: The breadth of benefits provided by clean and abundant water in the natural and built environment; including those derived from water service providers like water supply or wastewater utilities. Benefits may be felt directly or indirectly by society and fall into the following categories: regulation, provision, support, and cultural.