Section 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.