3. As used in P.L.1957, c.183 (C. 40:14B-1 et seq.), 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, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 42 or 45 of P.L.1957, c.183 (C.40:14B-4, C.40:14B-5, C.40:14B-6, C.40:14B-11, C.40:14B-12, C.40:14B-13, C.40:14B-42, or C. 40:14B-45), 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 municipal authority;

(5) “Municipal authority,” “authority,” or “water reclamation authority” shall mean a public body created or organized pursuant to section 4, 5 or 6 of P.L.1957, c.183 (C.40:14B-4, C.40:14B-5, or C. 40:14B-6) and shall include a municipal utilities authority created by one or more municipalities and a county utilities authority created by a county;

(6) Subject to the exceptions provided in section 10, 11 or 12 of P.L.1957, c.183 (C.40:14B-10, C.40:14B-11, or C. 40:14B-12), “district” shall mean the area within the territorial boundaries of the county, or of the municipality or municipalities, which created or joined in or caused the creation or organization of a municipal authority;

(7) “Local unit” shall mean the county, or any municipality, which created or joined in or caused the creation or organization of a municipal authority;

(8) “Water system” shall mean the plants, structures and other real and personal property acquired, constructed or operated or to be acquired, constructed or operated by a municipal authority or by any person to whom a municipal authority has extended credit for this purpose for the purposes of the municipal authority, including reservoirs, basins, dams, canals, aqueducts, standpipes, conduits, pipelines, mains, pumping stations, water distribution systems, compensating reservoirs, waterworks or sources of water supply, wells, purification or filtration plants or other plants and works, connections, rights of flowage or division, and other plants, structures, boats, conveyances, and other real and personal property, and rights therein, and appurtenances necessary or useful and convenient for the accumulation, supply and redistribution of water.

The term “water system” shall include the replacement of service connections to a publicly-owned water system, from the distribution main onto privately-owned real property and into a privately-owned structure, when used in reference to a project undertaken for the purpose of replacing residential, commercial, and institutional lead service lines, regardless of possible private service connection ownership;

(9) “Sewerage system” shall mean the plants, structures, on-site wastewater systems and other real and personal property acquired, constructed or operated or to be acquired, constructed, maintained or operated by a municipal authority or by any person to whom a municipal authority has extended credit for this purpose for the purposes of the municipal authority, including sewers, conduits, pipelines, mains, pumping and ventilating stations, sewage treatment or disposal systems, plants and works, connections, 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;

(10) “Utility system” shall mean a water system, solid waste system, sewerage system, or a hydroelectric system or any combination of such systems, acquired, constructed or operated or to be acquired, constructed or operated by a municipal authority or by any person to whom a municipal authority has extended credit for this purpose;

(11) “Cost” shall mean, in addition to the usual connotations thereof, the cost of acquisition or construction of all or any part of a utility system and of all or any property, rights, easements, privileges, agreements and franchises deemed by the municipal 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 municipal authority, as calculated by the system actuary for a date certain upon the request of a municipal authority, for early retirement incentive benefits granted by the municipal 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, cost of financial, professional and other estimates and advice, organization, administrative, operating and other expenses of the municipal 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 utility 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 municipal authority may determine, and also reimbursements to the municipal authority or any county, municipality or other person of any moneys theretofore expended for the purposes of the municipal authority or to any county or municipality of any moneys theretofore expended for or in connection with water supply, solid waste, water distribution, sanitation or hydroelectric facilities;

(12) “Real property” shall mean lands both within or without the State, and improvements thereof or thereon, or any rights or interests therein;

(13) “Construct” and “construction” shall connote and include acts of construction, reconstruction, replacement, extension, improvement and betterment of a utility system;

(14) “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, and shall include any chemical wastes or hazardous wastes;

(15) “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 and leachate as may be present;

(16) “On-site wastewater system” means any of several 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;

(17) “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;

(18) “Bonds” shall mean bonds or other obligations issued pursuant to P.L.1957, c.183 (C. 40:14B-1 et seq.);

(19) “Service charges” shall mean water service charges, solid waste service charges, sewer service charges, hydroelectric service charges or any combination of such charges, as said terms are defined in section 21 or 22 of P.L.1957, c.183 (C. 40:14B-21 or C. 40:14B-22) or in section 7 of P.L.1980, c.34 (C. 40:14B-21.1);

(20) “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 utility system operated by a municipal authority;

(21) “Sewage or water reclamation authority” shall mean a public body created pursuant to the “sewerage authorities law,” P.L.1946, c.138 (C. 40:14A-1 et seq.) or the acts amendatory thereof or supplemental thereto;

(22) “County sewer authority” shall mean a sanitary sewer district authority created pursuant to the act entitled “An act relating to the establishment of sewerage districts in first- and second-class counties, the creation of Sanitary Sewer District Authorities by the establishing of such districts, prescribing the powers and duties of any such authority and of other public bodies in connection with the construction of sewers and sewage disposal facilities in any such district, and providing the ways and means for paying the costs of construction and operation thereof,” approved April 23, 1946 (P.L.1946, c.123), or the acts amendatory thereof or supplemental thereto;

(23) “Chemical waste” shall mean a material normally generated by or used in chemical, petrochemical, plastic, pharmaceutical, biochemical or microbiological manufacturing processes or petroleum refining processes, which has been selected for waste disposal and which is known to hydrolize, ionize or decompose, which is soluble, burns or oxidizes, or which may react with any of the waste materials which are introduced into the landfill, or which is buoyant on water, or which has a viscosity less than that of water or which produces a foul odor. Chemical waste may be either hazardous or nonhazardous;

(24) “Effluent” shall mean liquids which are treated in and discharged by sewage treatment plants;

(25) “Hazardous wastes” shall mean any waste or combination of waste which poses a present or potential threat to human health, living organisms or the environment. “Hazardous waste” shall include, but not be limited to, waste material that is toxic, corrosive, irritating, sensitizing, radioactive, biologically infectious, explosive or flammable;

(26) “Leachate” shall mean a liquid that has been in contact with solid waste and contains dissolved or suspended materials from that solid waste;

(27) “Recycling” shall mean the separation, collection, processing or recovery of metals, glass, paper, solid waste and other materials for reuse or for energy production and shall include resource recovery;

(28) “Sludge” shall mean any solid, semisolid, or liquid waste generated from a municipal, industrial or other sewage treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility, or any other such waste having similar characteristics and effects; “sludge” shall not include effluent;

(29) “Solid waste” shall mean garbage, refuse, and other discarded materials resulting from industrial, commercial and agricultural operations, and from domestic and community activities, and shall include all other waste materials including sludge, chemical waste, hazardous wastes and liquids, except for liquids which are treated in public sewage treatment plants and except for solid animal and vegetable wastes collected by swine producers licensed by the State Department of Agriculture to collect, prepare and feed such wastes to swine on their own farms;

(30) “Solid waste system” shall mean and include the plants, structures and other real and personal property acquired, constructed or operated or to be acquired, constructed or operated by an authority or by any person to whom a municipal authority has extended credit for this purpose pursuant to the provisions of P.L.1957, c.183 (C. 40:14B-1 et seq.), including transfer stations, incinerators, recycling facilities, including facilities for the generation, transmission and distribution of energy derived from the processing of solid waste, sanitary landfill facilities or other property or plants for the collection, recycling or disposal of solid waste and all vehicles, equipment and other real and personal property and rights thereon and appurtenances necessary or useful and convenient for the collection, recycling, or disposal of solid waste in a sanitary manner;

(31) “Hydroelectric system” shall mean the plants, structures and other real and personal property acquired, constructed or operated or to be acquired, constructed or operated by an authority pursuant to the provisions of P.L.1957, c.183 (C. 40:14B-1 et seq.), including all that which is necessary or useful and convenient for the generation, transmission and sale of hydroelectric power at wholesale;

(32) “Hydroelectric power” shall mean the production of electric current by the energy of moving water;

(33) “Sale of hydroelectric power at wholesale” shall mean any sale of hydroelectric power to any person for purposes of resale of such power;

(34) “Alternative electrical energy” shall mean electrical energy produced from solar, photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, or biomass technologies, provided that in the case of biomass technology, the biomass is cultivated and harvested in a sustainable manner;

(35) “Alternative electrical energy system” shall mean any system which uses alternative electrical energy to provide all or a portion of the electricity for the heating, cooling, or general electrical energy needs of a building;

(36) “Pilot county” shall mean a county of the second class having a population between 280,000 and 290,000, a population between 510,000 and 520,000, and a population between 530,000 and 540,000 according to the 2010 federal decennial census;

(37) “Pilot county utilities authority” shall mean a county utilities authority in a county designated as a pilot county;

(38) “Lead service line” means a water supply connection that is made of, or lined with, a material consisting of lead, and which connects a water main to a building inlet. A lead pigtail, lead gooseneck, or other lead fitting shall be considered to be a lead service line, regardless of the composition of the service line or other portions of piping to which such piece is attached. A galvanized service line shall be considered to be a lead service line. A lead service line may be owned by the public community water system, a property owner, or both.

L.1957, c.183, s.3; amended 1977, c.384, s.4; 1980, c.34, s.3; 1980, c.77, s.3; 1984, c.178, s.1; 2001, c.123, s.3; 2002, c.42, s.5; 2007, c.306, s.1; 2013, c.190, s.3; 2018, c.114, s.1; 2021, c.184, s.1.