2023 New York Laws › ENV - Environmental Conservation › Article 17 - Water Pollution Control › Title 1 - General Provisions and Public Policy › 17-0105 - Definitions Applicable to Portions of This Article.

§ 17-0105. Definitions applicable to portions of this article.
When  used  in titles 1 to 11, inclusive, and titles 14 and 19 of this
  article:
1. "Person" or "persons"  means  any  individual,  public  or  private
  corporation,  political  subdivision,  government  agency, municipality,
  industry, co-partnership, association, firm, trust, estate or any  other
  legal entity whatsoever.
2.  "Waters"  or  "waters  of the state" shall be construed to include
  lakes, bays,  sounds,  ponds,  impounding  reservoirs,  springs,  wells,
  rivers,   streams,  creeks,  estuaries,  marshes,  inlets,  canals,  the
  Atlantic ocean within the territorial limits of the state  of  New  York
  and  all  other  bodies  of  surface  or  underground  water, natural or
  artificial, inland or coastal, fresh or salt, public or private  (except
  those  private  waters  which  do  not combine or effect a junction with
  natural surface or underground waters), which are  wholly  or  partially
  within or bordering the state or within its jurisdiction.
3.  "Marine  district"  shall include the waters of the Atlantic ocean
  within three nautical miles from the coast  line  and  all  other  tidal
  waters  within the state, except the Hudson river northerly of the south
  end of Manhattan Island.
4. "Sewage" means  the  water-carried  human  or  animal  wastes  from
  residences,   buildings,  industrial  establishments  or  other  places,
  together with such ground water infiltration and surface water as may be
  present. The admixture with sewage as above defined of industrial wastes
  or other wastes as hereafter defined, shall also be considered  "sewage"
  within the meaning of this article.
5.  "Industrial  waste"  means  any  liquid,  gaseous,  solid or waste
  substance or  a  combination  thereof  resulting  from  any  process  of
  industry,  manufacturing,  trade, or business or from the development or
  recovery of any natural resources, which may cause or  might  reasonably
  be   expected  to  cause  pollution  of  the  waters  of  the  state  in
  contravention of the standards adopted as provided herein.
6. "Other  wastes"  means  garbage,  refuse,  decayed  wood,  sawdust,
  shavings,  bark, sand, lime, cinders, ashes, offal, oil, tar, dyestuffs,
  acids, chemicals, ballast and all other discarded matter not  sewage  or
  industrial  waste  which  may  cause  or might reasonably be expected to
  cause pollution of the waters of  the  state  in  contravention  of  the
  standards adopted as provided herein.
7.  "Standard"  or "Standards" means such measure of purity or quality
  for any waters in relation to their reasonable and necessary use as  may
  be established by the department pursuant to section 17-0301.
8.  "Sewer  system" or "sewerage system" means pipe lines or conduits,
  pumping stations, and force mains, and all other constructions, devices,
  and  appliances  appurtenant  thereto,  used  for   conducting   sewage,
  industrial waste or other wastes to a point of ultimate disposal.
9.  "Treatment works" means any plant, disposal field, lagoon, pumping
  station, constructed drainage ditch or surface water intercepting ditch,
  incinerator, area devoted to sanitary land fills,  or  other  works  not
  specifically  mentioned  herein,  installed for the purpose of treating,
  neutralizing, stabilizing or disposing of sewage,  industrial  waste  or
  other wastes.
10.  "Disposal  system"  means  a  system  for  disposing  of  sewage,
  industrial waste or  other  wastes,  and  including  sewer  systems  and
  treatment works.
11.  "Outlet"  means  the  terminus of a sewer system, or the point of
  emergence of any water-borne sewage, industrial waste or other wastes or
  the effluent therefrom, into the waters of the state.
12. "Shellfish" includes oysters, scallops, claims, mussels and  other
  aquatic  mollusks,  and  lobsters,  shrimp,  crawfish,  crabs  and other
  aquatic crustaceans.
13.  "State  Pollutant  Discharge Elimination System" or "SPDES" means
  the  system  established  pursuant  hereto  for  issuance   of   permits
  authorizing discharges to the waters of the state.
14. "National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System" or "NPDES" means
  the  national system for the issuance of permits under the Federal Water
  Pollution Control Act.
15. "Effluent standard and/or limitation"  means  any  restriction  on
  quantities,  quality,  rates  and  concentrations of chemical, physical,
  biological, and other constituents of  effluents  which  are  discharged
  into or allowed to run from an outlet or point source into waters of the
  state promulgated by the federal government.
16.  "Point  source"  means  any  discernible,  confined  and discrete
  conveyance, including but not  limited  to  any  pipe,  ditch,  channel,
  tunnel,  conduit,  well,  discrete  fissure,  container,  rolling stock,
  concentrated animal feeding operation, vessel or other  floating  craft,
  or  landfill leachate collection system from which pollutants are or may
  be discharged.  This  term  does  not  include  agricultural  stormwater
  discharges and return flows from irrigated agriculture.
17. "Pollutant" means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue,
  sewage,  garbage,  sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological
  materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded  equipment,
  rock,  sand and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged
  into water; and ballast which may cause or might reasonably be  expected
  to  cause  pollution  of the waters of the state in contravention of the
  standards adopted as provided herein.
18. "Schedule of compliance" means a  schedule  of  remedial  measures
  including  an  enforceable  sequence of actions or operations leading to
  compliance with an effluent limitation, other  limitation,  prohibition,
  or standard.
19.  "Toxic  pollutant"  means  those  pollutants,  or  combination 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 through food  chains,
  will,  on  the  basis  of information available to the department, cause
  death, disease, behavorial  abnormalities,  cancer,  genetic  mutations,
  physiological  malfunctions,  including malfunctions in reproduction, or
  physical deformations, in such organisms or their offspring.
20. "New source" means  any  source,  the  construction  of  which  is
  commenced  after the publication of a standard or performance applicable
  to such source under the provisions of the Act, provided  such  standard
  is thereafter promulgated and adopted.
21.  "Standard of performance" means a standard for the control of the
  discharge of pollutants which reflects the greatest degree  of  effluent
  reduction  which  the  federal  government  determines  to be achievable
  through  application  of  the  best   available   demonstrated   control
  technology,   processes,   operating  methods,  or  other  alternatives,
  including, where practicable, a  standard  permitting  no  discharge  of
  pollutants.
22. "Toxic and pretreatment effluent standard" means standards adopted
  by the federal government pursuant to section 307 of the Act.
23.  "Tanker"  means  any  watercraft of more than three hundred gross
  tons and having a fully loaded draft of seven feet or more used to carry
  any liquid cargo, including petroleum, oil or water.