New Mexico Statutes
Article 4A - Radioactive Materials
Section 74-4A-4 - Definitions.

As used in the Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Act:
A. "committee" means the joint interim legislative radioactive and hazardous materials committee;
B. "disposal" means the long-term isolation of radioactive material, including long-term monitored storage which permits retrieval of the radioactive material stored and includes the temporary or permanent disposal of all hazardous wastes;
C. "environmental evaluation group" means the independent state review facility administratively attached to New Mexico institute of mining and technology and funded by the United States department of energy;
D. "hazardous waste" means any garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant or air pollution control facility or other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid or containing gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining or agricultural operations or from community activities which because of its quantity, concentration or physical, chemical or infectious characteristics may cause or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible or incapacitating reversible illness or pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, disposed of or otherwise managed. The term "hazardous waste" does not include solid or dissolved material in domestic sewage or animal excrement in connection with farm, ranch or feedlot operations or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or industrial discharges that are point sources subject to permits under Section 402 of the federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended, as the provisions exist on January 1, 1981, or source, special or byproduct material as defined in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, as these definitions exist on January 1, 1981, or any of the following, until the board determines that they are subject to Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 6921 et seq.): drilling fluids, produced waters and other wastes associated with the exploration, development or production of crude oil or natural gas or geothermal energy, any fly ash waste, bottom ash waste, slag waste, flue gas emission control waste generated primarily from the combustion of coal or other fossil fuels, solid waste from the extraction, beneficiation or processing of ores and minerals, including phosphate rock and overburden from the mining of uranium ore or cement kiln dust waste;
E. "high-level waste" means the highly radioactive wastes resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and includes both the liquid waste which is produced directly in reprocessing and any solid material into which such liquid waste is made;
F. "low-level waste" means material contaminated with radioactive elements emitting beta or gamma particles or with traces of transuranic elements in concentrations of less than one hundred nanocuries per gram;
G. "mixed waste" means any mixture of hazardous waste regulated under the Hazardous Waste Act and radioactive waste regulated under the federal Atomic Energy Act of 1954;
H. "radioactive materials" means any material or combination of materials which spontaneously emits ionizing radiation. Materials in which the estimated specific activity is not greater than 0.002 microcuries per gram of material, and in which the radioactivity is essentially uniformly distributed, are not considered to be radioactive materials;
I. "radioactive waste" means high-level waste, transuranic contaminated waste and low-level waste;
J. "spent fuel" means nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in and recovered from a civilian nuclear power plant;
K. "task force" means the radioactive waste consultation task force; and
L. "transuranic contaminated waste" means material contaminated with radionuclides emitting alpha radiation having an atomic number greater than ninety-two, including neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium, in concentrations of greater than one hundred nanocuries per gram.
History: Laws 1979, ch. 380, § 3; reenacted by 1981, ch. 374, § 3; 1983, ch. 22, § 1; 1986, ch. 61, § 3; 1991, ch. 2, § 2.
Cross references. — For Section 402 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, referred to in Subsection D, see 33 U.S.C. § 1342.
For the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, see 42 U.S.C. § 2011 et seq.
The 1991 amendment, effective January 30, 1991, added present Subsections C and G; redesignated former Subsections C to E and F to J as Subsections D to F and H to L, respectively; substituted "radionuclides emitting alpha radiation" for "elements" in subsection L; and made a minor stylistic change.
Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — What constitutes "hazardous waste" subject to regulation under Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (42 USCS §§ 6901 et seq.), 135 A.L.R. Fed. 197.