3. As used in this act, unless the context clearly requires a different meaning, the following words and terms shall have the following meanings: a. "Administrator" means the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency or his authorized representative; b. "Areawide plan" means any plan prepared pursuant to section 208 of the Federal Act; c. "Commissioner" means the Commissioner of Environmental Protection or his authorized representative; d. "Department" means the Department of Environmental Protection; e. "Discharge" means an intentional or unintentional action or omission resulting in the releasing, spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, or dumping of a pollutant into the waters of the State, onto land or into wells from which it might flow or drain into said waters or into waters or onto lands outside the jurisdiction of the State, which pollutant enters the waters of the State. "Discharge" includes the release of any pollutant into a municipal treatment works; f. "Effluent limitation" means any restriction on quantities, quality, rates and concentration of chemical, physical, thermal, biological, and other constituents of pollutants established by permit, or imposed as an interim enforcement limit pursuant to an administrative order, including an administrative consent order; g. "Federal Act" means the "Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972" (Public Law 92-500; 33 U.S.C. s.1251 et seq.); h. "Municipal treatment works" means the treatment works of any municipal, county, or State agency or any agency or subdivision created by one or more municipal, county or State governments and the treatment works of any public utility as defined in R.S.48:2-13; i. "National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System" or "NPDES" means the national system for the issuance of permits under the Federal Act; j. "New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System" or "NJPDES" means the New Jersey system for the issuance of permits under this act; k. "Permit" means a NJPDES permit issued pursuant to section 6 of this act. "Permit" includes a letter of agreement entered into between a delegated local agency and a user of its municipal treatment works, setting effluent limitations and other conditions on the user of the agency's municipal treatment works; l. "Person" means any individual, corporation, company, partnership, firm, association, owner or operator of a treatment works, political subdivision of this State and any state or interstate agency. "Person" shall also mean any responsible corporate official for the purpose of enforcement action under section 10 of this act; m. "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, or vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be discharged; n. "Pollutant" means any dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, refuse, oil, grease, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive substance, thermal waste, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt, and industrial, municipal or agricultural waste or other residue discharged into the waters of the State. "Pollutant" includes both hazardous and nonhazardous pollutants; o. "Pretreatment standards" means any restriction on quantities, quality, rates, or concentrations of pollutants discharged into municipal or privately owned treatment works adopted pursuant to P.L.1972, c.42 (C.58:11-49 et seq.); p. "Schedule of compliance" means a schedule of remedial measures including an enforceable sequence of actions or operations leading to compliance with water quality standards, an effluent limitation or other limitation, prohibition or standard; q. "Substantial modification of a permit" means any significant change in any effluent limitation, schedule of compliance, compliance monitoring requirement, or any other provision in any permit which permits, allows, or requires more or less stringent or more or less timely compliance by the permittee; r. "Toxic pollutant" means any pollutant identified pursuant to the Federal Act, or any pollutant or combination of pollutants, including disease causing agents, which after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion, inhalation or assimilation into any organism, either directly or indirectly by ingestion through food chains, will, on the basis of information available to the commissioner, cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological malfunctions, including malfunctions in reproduction, or physical deformation, in such organisms or their offspring; s. "Treatment works" means any device or systems, whether public or private, used in the storage, treatment, recycling, or reclamation of municipal or industrial waste of a liquid nature including intercepting sewers, outfall sewers, sewage collection systems, cooling towers and ponds, pumping, power and other equipment and their appurtenances; extensions, improvements, remodeling, additions, and alterations thereof; elements essential to provide a reliable recycled supply such as standby treatment units and clear well facilities; and any other works including sites for the treatment process or for ultimate disposal of residues resulting from such treatment. "Treatment works" includes any other method or system for preventing, abating, reducing, storing, treating, separating, or disposing of pollutants, including storm water runoff, or industrial waste in combined or separate storm water and sanitary sewer systems; t. "Waters of the State" means the ocean and its estuaries, all springs, streams and bodies of surface or ground water, whether natural or artificial, within the boundaries of this State or subject to its jurisdiction; u. "Hazardous pollutant" means: (1) Any toxic pollutant; (2) Any substance regulated as a pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, Pub.L.92-516 (7 U.S.C. s.136 et seq.); (3) Any substance the use or manufacture of which is prohibited under the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, Pub.L.94-469 (15 U.S.C. s.2601 et seq.); (4) Any substance identified as a known carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer; (5) Any hazardous waste as designated pursuant to section 3 of P.L.1981, c.279 (C.13:1E-51) or the "Resource Conservation and Recovery Act," Pub.L.94-580 (42 U.S.C. s.6901 et seq.); or (6) Any hazardous substance as defined pursuant to section 3 of P.L.1976, c.141 (C.58:10-23.11b); v. "Serious violation" means an exceedance of an effluent limitation for a discharge point source set forth in a permit, administrative order, or administrative consent agreement, including interim enforcement limits, by 20 percent or more for a hazardous pollutant, or by 40 percent or more for a nonhazardous pollutant, calculated on the basis of the monthly average for a pollutant for which the effluent limitation is expressed as a monthly average, or, in the case of an effluent limitation expressed as a daily maximum and without a monthly average, on the basis of the monthly average of all maximum daily test results for that pollutant in any month; in the case of an effluent limitation for a pollutant that is not measured by mass or concentration, the department shall prescribe an equivalent exceedance factor therefor. The department may utilize, on a case-by-case basis, a more stringent factor of exceedance to determine a serious violation if the department states the specific reasons therefor, which may include the potential for harm to human health or the environment. "Serious violation" shall not include a violation of a permit limitation for color; w. "Significant noncomplier" means any person who commits a serious violation for the same hazardous pollutant or the same nonhazardous pollutant, at the same discharge point source, in any two months of any six-month period, or who exceeds the monthly average or, in a case of a pollutant for which no monthly average has been established, the monthly average of the daily maximums for an effluent limitation for the same pollutant at the same discharge point source by any amount in any four months of any six-month period, or who fails to submit a completed discharge monitoring report in any two months of any six-month period. The department may utilize, on a case-by-case basis, a more stringent frequency or factor of exceedance to determine a significant noncomplier, if the department states the specific reasons therefor, which may include the potential for harm to human health or the environment. A local agency shall not be deemed a "significant noncomplier" due to an exceedance of an effluent limitation established in a permit for flow; x. "Local agency" means a political subdivision of the State, or an agency or instrumentality thereof, that owns or operates a municipal treatment works; y. "Delegated local agency" means a local agency with an industrial pretreatment program approved by the department; z. "Upset" means an exceptional incident in which there is unintentional and temporary noncompliance with an effluent limitation because of an event beyond the reasonable control of the permittee, including fire, riot, sabotage, or a flood, storm event, natural cause, or other act of God, or other similar circumstance, which is the cause of the violation. "Upset" also includes noncompliance consequent to the performance of maintenance operations for which a prior exception has been granted by the department or a delegated local agency; aa. "Bypass" means the anticipated or unanticipated intentional diversion of waste streams from any portion of a treatment works; bb. "Major facility" means any facility or activity classified as such by the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, or his representative, in conjunction with the department, and includes industrial facilities and municipal treatment works; cc. "Significant indirect user" means a discharger of industrial or other pollutants into a municipal treatment works, as defined by the department, including, but not limited to, industrial dischargers, but excluding the collection system of a municipal treatment works; dd. "Violation of this act" means a violation of any provisions of this act, and shall include a violation of any rule or regulation, water quality standard, effluent limitation or other condition of a permit, or order adopted, issued, or entered into pursuant to this act; ee. "Aquaculture" means the propagation, rearing, and subsequent harvesting of aquatic organisms in controlled or selected environments, and the subsequent processing, packaging and marketing, and shall include, but need not be limited to, activities to intervene in the rearing process to increase production such as stocking, feeding, transplanting, and providing for protection from predators. "Aquaculture"shall not include the construction of facilities and appurtenant structures that might otherwise be regulated pursuant to any State or federal law or regulation; ff. "Aquatic organism" means and includes, but need not be limited to, finfish, mollusks, crustaceans, and aquatic plants which are the property of a person engaged in aquaculture. L.1977,c.74,s.3; amended 1990, c.28, s.1; 1997, c.236, s.26.