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.