Natural and Artificially Made Bodies of Water

Article 682 fills the gap between swimming pools and marinas, covering things like aeration equipment in a wastewater pond, fountains in a decorative lake, or fish-farm gear, where there is electrical equipment in a body of water that is not a designed pool or a boat dock. It establishes electrical datum planes and equipotential zones to keep voltage gradients low where people might contact the water or its edge.

The idea mirrors marinas and pools: control the voltage difference a body can bridge. I bond the equipment, respect the datum-plane spacing for enclosures and receptacles above the water, and protect the circuits so a failing aerator motor cannot turn a whole pond into a shock hazard.

When it applies

This covers electrical work in and around natural or man-made bodies of water that are not pools, spas or marinas — aeration ponds, decorative ponds, cooling and storage basins, canals. The focus is defining the hazardous water zones and building equipotential planes so a person in or near the water is not exposed to a difference in voltage.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the pool article covers it — these waters have their own rules and zone definitions.
• Placing equipment or receptacles inside the defined electrical datum plane where they are not allowed.
• Neglecting the bonding that keeps everything a person can touch at the same potential.

In the field

Around a pond I map out the water zones first, because where the equipment can sit is driven entirely by those boundaries. Get the equipotential bonding right and a fault raises everything together; skip it and the shock hides in the gap between the dock and the water.