In this chapter:

Terms Used In Wisconsin Statutes 292.01

  • Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
  • Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
  • Following: when used by way of reference to any statute section, means the section next following that in which the reference is made. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. Source: OCC
  • Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
  • Land: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments and all rights thereto and interests therein. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
  • Municipality: includes cities and villages; it may be construed to include towns. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
  • Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
  • Person: includes all partnerships, associations and bodies politic or corporate. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Personal representative: means a person, however denominated, who is authorized to administer a decedent's estate. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Property: includes real and personal property. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • State: when applied to states of the United States, includes the District of Columbia, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the several territories organized by Congress. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Town: may be construed to include cities, villages, wards or districts. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
  • Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
  • Village: means incorporated village. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
   (1)   “Approved facility” has the meaning given in s. 289.01 (3).
   (1m)   “Approved mining facility” has the meaning given in s. 289.01 (4) and includes a mining waste site, as defined in s. 295.41 (31).
   (1s)   “Contaminated sediment” means sediment that contains a hazardous substance.
   (2)   “Department” means the department of natural resources.
   (3)   “Discharge” means, but is not limited to, spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying or dumping.
   (3m)   “Engineering control” means an object or action designed and implemented to contain contamination or to minimize the spread of contamination, including a cap, soil cover, or in-place stabilization, but not including a sediment cover.
   (4)   “Environmental pollution” means the contaminating or rendering unclean or impure the air, land or waters of the state, or making the same injurious to public health, harmful for commercial or recreational use, or deleterious to fish, bird, animal or plant life.
   (5)   “Hazardous substance” means any substance or combination of substances including any waste of a solid, semisolid, liquid or gaseous form which may cause or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible or incapacitating reversible illness or which may pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment because of its quantity, concentration or physical, chemical or infectious characteristics. This term includes, but is not limited to, substances which are toxic, corrosive, flammable, irritants, strong sensitizers or explosives as determined by the department.
   (6)   “Hazardous waste” means any solid waste identified by the department as hazardous under s. 291.05.
   (7)   “Landfill” means a solid waste facility for solid waste disposal.
   (8)   “Lender” means a bank, credit union, savings bank, savings and loan association, mortgage banker or similar financial institution, the primary business of which is to engage in lending activities or an insurance company, pension fund or government agency engaged in secured lending.
   (9)   “Lending activities” means advancing funds or credit to and collecting funds from another person; entering into security agreements, including executing mortgages, liens, factoring agreements, accounts receivable financing arrangements, conditional sales, sale and leaseback arrangements and installment sales contracts; conducting inspections of or monitoring a borrower’s business and collateral; providing financial assistance; restructuring or renegotiating the terms of a loan obligation; requiring payment of additional interest; extending the payment period of a loan obligation; initiating foreclosure or other proceedings to enforce a security interest in property before obtaining title; requesting and obtaining the appointment of a receiver; and making decisions related to extending or refusing to extend credit.
   (10)   “Long-term care” means the routine care, maintenance and monitoring of a solid or hazardous waste facility following closing of the facility.
   (11)   “Municipality” means any city, town, village, county, county utility district, town sanitary district, public inland lake protection and rehabilitation district or metropolitan sewage district.
   (12)   “Nonapproved facility” has the meaning given in s. 289.01 (24).
   (13)   “Person” means an individual, owner, operator, corporation, limited liability company, partnership, association, municipality, interstate agency, state agency or federal agency.
   (15)   “Preventive measures” mean the installation or testing of equipment or devices, a designated way of performing a specified operation or the preparation of an emergency response plan.
   (16)   “Representative” means any person acting in the capacity of a conservator, guardian, court-appointed receiver, personal representative, testamentary trustee of a deceased person, trustee of a living trust, or fiduciary of real or personal property.
   (17)   “Secretary” means the secretary of natural resources.
   (17g)   “Sediment” means particles in the bed of a navigable water up to the ordinary high-water mark that are derived from the erosion of rock, minerals, soil, and biological materials and from chemical precipitation from the water column and that are transported or deposited by water.
   (17m)   “Sediment cover” means a layer of uncontaminated sand or similar material that is deposited on top of contaminated sediment.
   (18)   “Site or facility” means, except in s. 292.35, an approved facility, an approved mining facility, a nonapproved facility or a waste site.
   (19)   “Solid waste” has the meaning given under s. 289.01 (33).
   (21)   “Waste site” means any site, other than an approved facility, an approved mining facility or a nonapproved facility, where waste is disposed of regardless of when disposal occurred or where a hazardous substance is discharged before May 21, 1978.