N.Y. Environmental Conservation Law § 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.