

It includes any type of industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into water.

By law, the term "point source" also includes concentrated animal feeding operations, which are places where animals are confined and fed. It also includes vessels or other floating craft from which pollutants are or may be discharged. It means any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, such as a pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, discrete fissure, or container. The term point source is also defined very broadly in the Clean Water Act and it has been through 25 years of litigation.In essence, the permit translates general requirements of the Clean Water Act into specific provisions tailored to the operations of each person discharging pollutants. The permit will contain limits on what you can discharge, monitoring and reporting requirements, and other provisions to ensure that the discharge does not hurt water quality or people's health. The Clean Water Act prohibits anybody from discharging "pollutants" through a "point source" into a "water of the United States" unless they have an NPDES permit.
