Glossary

Glossary

TAX INCREMENT FINANCING (TIF):

TIF is the authority under California’s redevelopment law for local redevelopment agencies to pay for redevelopment projects with the future property tax revenue expected from the development. In other words, to attract development, redevelopment agencies can offer to finance redevelopment activities such as land acquisition, demolition, environmental cleanup, and public infrastructure expansion or maintenance. These projects are designed to increase the value of private property within the area, increasing overall property tax revenues. It is this increase in tax revenue, or “tax increment,” that pays for redevelopment. TIF provides a redevelopment mechanism by which contaminated land can be cleaned up and financed. State law allows local government to designate a blighted area as a tax increment financing district. Local government can then issue bonds to fund public improvements in the area, and pay the bonds back with the difference between the baseline (blighted) property tax revenue and the increased tax revenue from the improved property.

 

TEST PITS:

Pits dug into ground in an attempt to define geological characteristics and contaminated locations.

TETRACHLOROETHYLENE (TCE):

Volatile organic compound that is commonly used as an industrial degreasing solvent and a common groundwater contaminant. 

THERMAL DESORPTION:

Soil treatment system designed to desorb volatile organic compounds from contaminated soil.

THERMAL OXIDIZERS:

High temperature burners used for destroying volatile organic compounds in the vapor phase.

THREATENED SPECIES:

Under the Endangered Species Act, animal populations may be determined to be either threatened or endangered. Populations listed as threatened are less severely depleted than populations classed as endangered. 

THREE BID REQUIREMENT:

Three bids required by the Fund from contractors.

TOLUENE:

A toxic volatile organic compound often used as an industrial solvent.

TOTAL PETROLEUM HYDROCARBONS (TPH):

A measure of the concentration of mass of petroleum hydrocarbon constituents present in a given sample of air, water, or soil. The level of TPH can be used to determine the amount of contamination at a site.

TOTAL RECOVERABLE PETROLEUM HYDROCARBONS (TRPH):

 An EPA method for measuring total petroleum hydrocarbons in samples of soil and water.

TOTAL THRESHOLD LIMIT CONCENTRATION (TTLC):

A test for the toxicity characteristic of a waste. If the total concentration of a toxic substance in a waste is greater than this value, the waste is classified as hazardous in California. This is distinct from the Soluble Threshold Limit Concentration, or STLC, which is concerned with only the soluble concentration.

TOXIC HOT SPOTS:

Waters that have toxic pollution problems even after industries have installed cleanup technologies required by the Clean Water Act. EPA put out a national list in June 1989 on such toxic waterways. 

TOXIC POLLUTANT:

Those pollutants or combinations of pollutants including disease-causing agents, which after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion, inhalation or assimilation into any organism, either directly from the environment or indirectly by ingestion through food chains, will, on the basis of information available, cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological malfunctions or physical deformations, in such organism or their offspring.

TOXIC SUBSTANCE:

A chemical or mixture that may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.

TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT (TSCA):

A federal law of 1976 to regulate chemical substances or mixtures that may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.

TOXICITY CHARACTERISTIC LEACHING PROCEDURE (TCLP):

A federal test for the Toxicity Characteristic (TC). If the concentration of a toxic substance in a special extract of a waste exceeds the TC value, the waste is classified as hazardous in the United States (a “RCRA waste”). The extraction procedure is different from that of the California Waste Extraction Test (WET).

TOXICITY:

 Ability to harm human health or environment, such as injury, death or cancer. One of the criteria that is used to determine whether a waste is a hazardous waste (the "Toxicity Characteristic").

TRANSMISSIBILITY (GROUND WATER):

The capacity of an aquifer to transmit water under pressure. Also known as transmissivity, it is the rate at which water is transferred through a unit width of an aquifer under a unit hydraulic gradient. It is expressed as the product of the hydraulic conductivity and the thickness of the saturated portion of an aquifer.

TRANSPIRATION:

 The process by which water absorbed by plants (usually through the roots) is evaporated into the atmosphere from the plant surface (principally from the leaves).

TRENCHING:

Trenches dug in ground to install pipes, examine subsurface conditions, or to install other constructs.

TRICHLOROETHANE:

Trichloroethane (1,1,1-TCA; methylchloroform) is used as a cleaning agent for metals and plastics. 

TRICHLOROETHYLENE (TCE):

A volatile organic compound that is often used an industrial degreasing solvent. (Also known as trichloroethene.)

TURBIDITY:

Cloudiness in water due to suspended and colloidal organic and inorganic material.