Ark. Code Ann. § 8-4-102 (2026)

As used in this chapter:

1. “Any wastes” and “pollutants” include sewage, industrial wastes, or other wastes;
2. “Discharge into the waters of the state” means a discharge of any wastes in any manner that directly or indirectly permits such wastes to reach any of the waters of the state;
3. “Disposal system” means a system for disposing of sewage, industrial waste, and other wastes and includes sewer systems and treatment works;
4. “Industrial waste” means any liquid, gaseous, or solid waste substance resulting from any process of industry, mining, manufacturing, trade, or business or from the development of any natural resources;
5. “Other wastes” means garbage, municipal refuse, decayed wood, sawdust, shavings, bark, lime, sand, ashes, offal, oil, tar chemicals, and all other organic or inorganic substances, not including sewage or industrial waste that may be discharged into the waters of the state;
6. “Person” means any state agency, municipality, governmental subdivision of the state or the United States, public or private corporation, individual, partnership, association, or other entity;
7. “Pollution” means such contamination or other alteration of the physical, chemical, or biological properties of any waters of the state, or such discharge of any liquid, gaseous, or solid substance in any waters of the state as will, or is likely to, render the waters harmful, detrimental, or injurious to public health, safety, or welfare, to domestic, commercial, industrial, agricultural, recreational, or other legitimate beneficial uses, or to livestock, wild animals, birds, fish, or other aquatic life;
8. “Sewage” means the water-carried waste products from residences, public buildings, institutions, or other buildings, including the excrementitious or other discharge from the bodies of humans or animals, together with such groundwater infiltration and surface water as may be present;
9. “Sewer system” means pipelines or conduits, pumping stations, and force mains, and all other constructions, devices, and appliances appurtenant thereto, which are used for conducting sewage or industrial waste or other wastes to a point of disposal;
10. “Treatment works” means any plant, disposal field, lagoon, dam, pumping station, constructed drainage ditch or surface water intercepting ditch, incinerator, area devoted to sanitary landfills, or other works not specifically mentioned in this section, which is installed for the purpose of treating, stabilizing, or disposing of sewage, industrial waste, or other wastes; and
11. “Waters of the state” means all streams, lakes, marshes, ponds, watercourses, waterways, wells, springs, irrigation systems, drainage systems, and all other bodies or accumulations of water, surface and underground, natural or artificial, public or private, which are contained within, flow through, or border upon this state or any portion of the state.

History. Acts 1949, No. 472 [Part 1], § 1; 1961, No. 120, §§ 1, 2; 1975, No. 743, §§ 2, 3; A.S.A. 1947, § 82-1902; Acts 1993, No. 163, § 9; 1993, No. 165, § 9.

Publisher's Notes. Acts 1961, No. 120, § 8, which amended Acts 1949, No. 472, § 10, provided, in part, that it was the purpose of the act to provide additional and cumulative remedies to prevent, abate, and control the pollution of the waters of the state, and that nothing contained in the act should be construed to abridge or alter rights of action or remedies in equity or under the common law or statutory law, criminal or civil, nor should any provision of the act, or any action done by virtue of the act, be construed as estopping the state, or any municipality or person, as riparian owners or otherwise, in the exercise of their rights in equity or under the common law or statutory law, to suppress nuisances or to abate pollution.

In Acts 1975, No. 743, § 1, the General Assembly found and declared that since the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended (33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq.), provided for a permit system (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) to regulate the discharge of pollutants to the waters of the United States and provided that permits may be issued by states which are authorized to implement the provisions of that act, it was in the interest of the people of the State of Arkansas to amend the Arkansas Water and Air Pollution Control Act, as amended (§§ 8-4-101 — 8-4-106, 8-4-201 — 8-4-229, 8-4-301 — 8-4-314), in a manner so as to provide required legal authority to the State of Arkansas, through the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology, to implement the provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended, and thereby to continue in effect the state permit program for the prevention and elimination of pollution of all waters of the state, including navigable waters.