3. As used in this act, unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context: (1) "Municipality" shall mean any city of any class, any borough, village, town, township, or any other municipality other than a county or a school district, and except when used in section 4 or 21 of this act, any agency thereof or any two or more thereof acting jointly or any joint meeting or other agency of any two or more thereof; (2) "County" shall mean any county of any class; (3) "Governing body" shall mean, in the case of a county, the board of chosen freeholders, or in the case of those counties organized pursuant to the provisions of the "Optional County Charter Law," P.L.1972, c.154 (C.40:41A-1 et seq.), the board of chosen freeholders and the county executive, the county supervisor or the county manager, as appropriate, and, in the case of a municipality, the commission, council, board or body, by whatever name it may be known, having charge of the finances of the municipality; (4) "Person" shall mean any person, association, corporation, nation, State or any agency or subdivision thereof, other than a county or municipality of the State or a sewerage authority; (5) "Sewerage or water reclamation authority" shall mean a public body created pursuant to section 4 of this act; (6) Subject to the exceptions provided in section 4 of this act, "district" shall mean the area within the territorial boundaries of the county, or of the municipality or municipalities, which created or joined in the creation of a sewerage authority; (7) "Local unit" shall mean the county, or any municipality, which created or joined in the creation of a sewerage authority; (8) "Sewerage system" shall mean the plants, structures, on-site waste-water systems, and other real and personal property acquired, constructed, maintained or operated or to be acquired, constructed, maintained or operated by a sewerage authority for the purposes of the sewerage authority, including sewers, conduits, pipe lines, mains, pumping and ventilating stations, sewage treatment or disposal systems, plants and works, connections, and outfalls, compensating reservoirs, and other plants, structures, boats, conveyances, and other real and personal property, and rights therein, and appurtenances necessary or useful and convenient for the collection, treatment, purification or disposal in a sanitary manner of any sewage, liquid or solid wastes, night soil or industrial wastes; (9) "Cost" shall mean, in addition to the usual connotations thereof, the cost of acquisition or construction of all or any part of a sewerage system and of all or any property, rights, easements, privileges, agreements and franchises deemed by the sewerage authority to be necessary or useful and convenient therefor or in connection therewith and the cost of retiring the present value of the unfunded accrued liability due and owing by a sewerage authority, as calculated by the system actuary for a date certain upon the request of a sewerage authority, for early retirement incentive benefits granted by the sewerage authority pursuant to P.L.1991, c.230 and P.L.1993, c.181, including interest or discount on bonds, cost of issuance of bonds, engineering and inspection costs and legal expenses, costs of financial, professional and other estimates and advice, organization, administrative, operating and other expenses of the sewerage authority prior to and during such acquisition or construction, and all such other expenses as may be necessary or incident to the financing, acquisition, construction and completion of said sewerage system or part thereof and the placing of the same in operation, and also such provision or reserves for working capital, operating, maintenance or replacement expenses or for payment or security of principal of or interest on bonds during or after such acquisition or construction as the sewerage authority may determine, and also reimbursements to the sewerage authority or any county, municipality or other person of any moneys theretofore expended for the purposes of the sewerage authority or to any county or municipality of any moneys theretofore expended for in connection with sanitation facilities; (10) "Real property" shall mean lands both within and without the State, and improvements thereof or thereon, or any rights or interests therein; (11) "Construct" and "construction" shall connote and include acts of construction, reconstruction, replacement, extension, improvement and betterment of a sewerage system; (12) "Industrial wastes" shall mean liquid or other wastes resulting from any processes of industry, manufacture, trade or business or from the development of any natural resource; (13) "Sewage" shall mean the water-carried wastes created in and carried, or to be carried, away from, or to be processed by on-site wastewater systems, residences, hotels, apartments, schools, hospitals, industrial establishments, or any other public or private building, together with such surface or ground water and industrial wastes as may be present; (14) "On-site wastewater system" means any of several works, facilities, septic tanks or other devices, used to collect, treat, reclaim, or dispose of wastewater or sewage on or adjacent to the property on which the wastewater or sewage is produced, or to convey such wastewater or sewage from said property to such facilities as the authority may establish for its disposal; (15) "Pollution" means the condition of water resulting from the introduction therein of substances of a kind and in quantities rendering it detrimental or immediately or potentially dangerous to the public health, or unfit for public or commercial use; (16) "Ordinance" means a written act of the governing body of a municipality adopted and otherwise approved and published in the manner or mode of procedure prescribed for ordinances tending to obligate such municipality pecuniarily; (17) "Resolution" means a written act of the governing body of a local unit adopted and otherwise approved in the manner or mode of procedure prescribed for resolutions tending to obligate such local unit pecuniarily; (18) "Bonds" shall mean bonds or other obligations issued pursuant to this act; and (19) "Compensating reservoir" shall mean the structures, facilities and appurtenances for the impounding, transportation and release of water for the replenishment in periods of drought or at other necessary times of all or a part of waters in or bordering the State diverted into a sewer, sewage treatment or sewage disposal system operated by the sewerage authority. L.1946,c.138,s.3; amended 1951, c.127, s.2; 1953, c.177, s.3; 1980, c.77, s.1; 2001, c.123, s.1; 2002, c.42, s.4.