(8) “Breach of contract” means the failure of the municipality to comply with any of the following:
(a) The terms and conditions of the financial assistance agreement or interest rate subsidy agreement.
(b) The terms and conditions of the municipal resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of bonds or notes to the clean water fund program.
(9) “Capital improvement” means construction resulting in improvements to real property or depreciable property, or both, or adding to the value or useful life of these assets, including structural improvements, such as constructing new treatment works or BMPs or modifying existing buildings or facilities, or improvements that enhance usefulness or productivity, including replacing an existing pump with a more efficient new pump.
Note: The following are examples of capital improvements: constructing permeable pavement or an infiltration pond to control runoff; constructing new clarifiers, aeration tanks, or other major components of a treatment works; upgrading existing equipment or installing new, more efficient process equipment, such as equipment for dewatering, aeration, scraping, skimming, or disinfection; constructing new process, administration, and storage buildings; adding to or constructing major renovations of existing facilities; replacing or rehabilitating aged or undersized sanitary sewer pipes; replacing a roof on a treatment plant building; constructing a new lift station or upgrading an existing lift station; installing security, a supervisory control and data acquisition system, or monitoring equipment as part of a scored project.
(10) “Census block” means the smallest unit for which the U.S. census bureau collects and tabulates population information in the decennial census and income information in the ACS.
(11) “Census designated place” means a statistical area delineated for each decennial census according to U.S. census bureau guidelines for the purpose of presenting census data and ACS data for a concentration of population, housing and commercial structures that is locally identifiable by name, but is not within an incorporated place.
(12) “Census tract” means a small, relatively permanent statistical subdivision of a county used in the decennial census and the ACS, delineated for the purpose of presenting data, typically following visible features or governmental boundaries or both, including approximately 4,000 inhabitants, and designed to be a relatively homogeneous unit with respect to population characteristics, economic status, and living conditions.
(13) “Change order” means an action that specifies and justifies a change to a construction contract that alters the time of completion, or the total price, or both.
(14) “Clean water fund program” or “CWFP” means the program established under ss. 25.43, 281.58 and 281.59, Stats., for the purpose of providing financial assistance to municipalities for the planning, design and construction of treatment works and BMPs. (15) “Commercial facility” means any facility that is used for retail stores, restaurants, office buildings, laundries and other private business and service establishments or similar enterprises.
(16) “Compliance maintenance” means the program established and regulated under ch. NR 208, intended to prevent a permittee under ch. 283, Stats., from exceeding an effluent limitation contained in a permit issued under ch. 283, Stats. (17) “Construction” means an action taken to make a capital improvement, including any of the following actions:
(a) Building, erecting, extending, or assembling a treatment works or BMP or a new major asset for an existing treatment works or BMP.
(b) Preparing the construction site or sites of a scored project for work activities. Site preparation includes grading, staking, and digging, and demolition or abandonment of existing structures.
(c) Purchasing a package wastewater treatment system or capacity in an existing treatment works.
(d) Altering, modifying, improving, upgrading, rehabilitating, or adding to existing treatment works facilities or BMPs.
(e) Performing major repairs or replacing major components of existing facilities.
(f) Installing new piping or mechanical, electrical, or electronic equipment or facilities.
(g) Remediation of illicit discharges to an MS4 or runoff treatment works.
(18) “Custom tabulation” means a special tabulation of income data from the ACS microdata files that is performed by the U.S. bureau of the census, is not part of the standard ACS data tabulations, and results in generation of a median household income for an area designated by the applicant as the boundaries of a town sanitary district, public inland lake protection and rehabilitation district, or metropolitan sewerage district, or of the area served by the treatment works if the treatment works serves only a portion of the place or minor civil division in which it is located.
(19) “Debt” means a financial liability that is subject to repayment and incurred to fund a project, including liabilities in the form of lines of credit, bond anticipation notes, general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, general obligation promissory notes, certificates of indebtedness, and special assessment bonds.
(20) “Department” means the department of natural resources.
(21) “Design flow” means the average annual flow or average daily flow specified in an approved facilities plan or approved plans and specifications, the flow specified in a WPDES permit, or the flow required to meet performance standards.
(22) “Disadvantaged business enterprise” or “DBE” means a business entity certified as disadvantaged under the U.S. department of transportation unified certification program or other program approved by the U.S. environmental protection agency to certify disadvantaged businesses.
(23) “Discharge” has the meaning given in s. 283.01 (4), Stats. Note: Under s. 283.01 (4), Stats., “discharge”, when used without qualification, includes a discharge of any pollutant. (24) “DOA” means the department of administration.
(25) “Effluent limitation” has the meaning given in s. 283.01 (6), Stats. Note: Under s. 283.01 (6), Stats., “effluent limitation” means any restriction established by the department, including schedules of compliance, on quantities, rates, and concentrations of chemical, physical, biological, and other constituents that are discharged from point sources into waters of this state. Flow rates and flow volumes are considered to be physical constituents restricted by WPDES permits. (26) “Engineering” includes the following:
(a) Performing preliminary planning to determine the need for or the feasibility of building or modifying a treatment works or BMP, including preparing a facilities plan.
(b) Performing engineering, architectural, geotechnical, hydrogeological, fiscal, or economic investigations or studies.
(c) Identifying illicit discharges to an MS4, a BMP, or a wastewater treatment works if the identification work is directly related to the scored project.
(d) Preparing surveys, designs, plans, bidding documentation, working drawings, or specifications.
(e) Observing, inspecting or supervising any of the activities under pars. (a) to (d) or under sub.(17).
(27) “Equipment replacement fund” means a separate fund established by the municipality for the purpose of making expenditures for major repair or replacement of equipment necessary for continuing operation of wastewater or runoff treatment works, or for maintenance of a BMP.
(28) “Financial assistance” includes one or more of the following actions taken by the department and DOA under ss. 281.58 and 281.59, Stats.: (a) Providing a loan, principal forgiveness, interest rate subsidies, a grant, a guarantee, or credit enhancement to a municipality.
(b) Refinancing a municipality’s interim debt obtained for the scored project.
(c) Purchasing insurance for a municipality.
(29) “Financial assistance agreement” means a written agreement between a municipality, the department, and DOA that contains the terms and conditions of the financial assistance provided to the municipality under subch. II or III.
(30) “Financial assistance agreement amendment” means a formal, written change to an existing financial assistance agreement, executed by all parties to the original agreement.
(31) “Force account work” means engineering, construction, or other project-specific activities performed by municipal paid employees, or using equipment owned by the municipality, or both.
(32) “Governmental facility” means any public facility, including a facility used for legislative, judicial, administrative and regulatory activities of federal, state and local governments.
(33) “Groundwater” has the meaning given in s. 160.01 (4), Stats. (34) “Hardship financial assistance” means financial assistance authorized under s. 281.58 (13), Stats. (35) “Hardship financial assistance funding list” means a list established by the department each fiscal year that ranks, in environmental priority order, based on the priority list established under s. 281.58 (8e), Stats., scored projects eligible for hardship financial assistance under s. 281.58 (13) (b), Stats. (36) “Hardship fundable range’’ means those projects on the hardship financial assistance funding list that are projected to utilize all available hardship present value subsidy for each fiscal year.
(37) “Hardship present value subsidy” or “hardship PV” means the present value subsidy provided to municipalities to reduce loan interest rates below those interest rates established in s. 281.58 (12) (a), Stats., including 0% interest loans, and to provide grants. (38) “Hardship subsidy’’ means the amount of subsidy provided by the CWFP under s. 281.58 (13), Stats., to reduce the interest rate of a CWFP loan to a rate below any interest rate specified in s. 281.58 (12) (a), Stats., and to provide grants. (40) “Industrial facility” means any nongovernmental or nonresidential facility that is used for activities such as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, manufacturing, transportation, communications or providing services including electric, gas and sanitary services.
(41) “Industrial user” has the meaning given in s. 281.58 (1) (c), Stats. (44) “Institutional facility” means any facility that is used for social, charitable, religious and educational activities such as schools, churches, hospitals, nursing homes, penal institutions and similar uses.
(45) “Interest rate subsidy” means the subsidy, expressed in percentage points, provided by the CWFP under ss. 281.58 and 281.59, Stats., to reduce the interest cost of loans provided to municipalities by the BCPL under ch. 24, Stats. (46) “Interest rate subsidy agreement” means a written agreement between a municipality, the department, and DOA that contains the terms and conditions of financial assistance provided to the municipality under subch. IV.
(47) “Interim financing” means a debt incurred by a municipality to temporarily finance a scored project until permanent financing is obtained from the CWFP.
(48) “Interim financing costs” means the net interest, fees, and charges associated with issuing interim financing, including underwriter discounts, attorney fees, financial advisor fees, printing costs, bond rating charges, and trustees fees.
(49) “Lateral” means a privately−owned sewer service line that connects a residence, commercial establishment, institutional facility, or industrial user to a municipal sewage collection system or individual system.
(50) “Maintenance” means activities or procedures that are established, commonplace, or repetitious, and are performed or should be performed frequently or on a schedule to sustain the functional integrity and efficiency of existing facilities and to provide upkeep for prevention of early decline or failure, or are performed as needed in response to minor emergencies, such as sewer pipe repair or replacement when a pipe bursts, including the following types of maintenance:
(a) Preventive maintenance, including scheduled service, repair, inspection, adjustment, or replacement of parts, to keep equipment or facilities in satisfactory operating condition, to avoid frequent breakdowns and premature replacements, and to achieve the expected life of constructed assets and installed building equipment, conducted with a frequency of one year or less.
(b) Corrective maintenance, including unscheduled maintenance repairs to correct deficiencies during the year in which they occur.
(c) Mobile equipment maintenance, including all corrective, preventive, emergency, or replacement maintenance work done on mobile equipment assets, except when performed at time of purchase of used equipment to bring the purchased equipment to a fully functional or improved condition, or both.
(d) Recurring maintenance, including preventive maintenance activities that recur on a periodic and scheduled cycle of greater than 1 year, but less than 10 years.
(e) Component renewal which is preventive maintenance activities that recur on a periodic and scheduled cycle of greater than 10 years, unless performed within the scope of a larger scored project.
(f) Emergency maintenance, including unscheduled activities and repairs, such as repairing watermain breaks or mechanical malfunctions in aged or damaged infrastructure, typically initiated within a very short amount of time from when a need is identified, to correct an emergency need to prevent injury, loss of property, or human health impacts, or to quickly return an asset to service, excepting emergency repairs or replacement needed due to damage caused by severe weather, cyber attacks, or other unforeseen serious emergency situations over which the municipality has no control.
(g) Minor equipment replacement that substitutes or exchanges one existing asset, asset component, or item of installed equipment for another having the same specifications and the same capacity to perform the same function, except when performed within the scope of a larger capital improvement.
(h) Demolition occurring outside of the construction site of a scored project or that is not necessary for construction of a scored project.
(51) “Market interest rate” has the meaning given in s. 281.59 (1) (b), Stats. Note: Under s. 281.59 (1) (b), Stats., “market interest rate” means the effective interest rate on a fixed-rate revenue obligation issued by the state to fund a loan made under this section or, for a variable rate obligation, the effective interest rate that DOA determines would have been paid if the variable rate obligation had been sold at a fixed rate. (52) “Median household income” has the meaning given in s. 281.58 (1) (cm), Stats. Note: Under s. 281.58 (1) (m), Stats., “median household income” means median household income determined by the U.S. bureau of the census as adjusted by the department to reflect changes in household income since the most recent federal census. (53) “Minor civil division” means the primary governmental divisions of a county, including towns, as designated by the U.S. bureau of the census to collect and publish data.
(54) “Minority business enterprise” or “MBE” means a DBE that is owned or controlled on a daily basis by one or more minority group members.
(55) “Municipal separate storm sewer system” or “MS4” means a system of conveyances, including roads with drainage systems, municipal streets, catch basins, curbs, gutters, ditches, constructed channels, or storm drains, that is all of the following:
(a) Owned or operated by a municipality.
(b) Designed or used for collecting or conveying storm water.
(c) Not a combined sewer conveying both wastewater and storm water.
(d) Not part of a publicly owned wastewater treatment works that provides secondary or more stringent treatment.
(56) “Municipal WPDES storm water discharge permit” means any permit issued to a municipality by the department under s. 283.33 (3), Stats., for the purpose of controlling storm water discharges from an MS4. (57) “Municipality” has the meaning given in s. 281.59 (1) (c), Stats. Note: Under s. 281.59 (1) (c), Stats., “municipality” means any city, town, village, county, county utility district, town sanitary district, public inland lake protection and rehabilitation district, metropolitan sewerage district, joint local water authority created under s. 66.0823, Stats., or federally recognized American Indian tribe or band in this state. (58) “New or changed limits” means an effluent limitation in a WPDES permit that was newly established or modified after May 17, 1988.
(59) “Nonpoint source” has the meaning given in s. 281.65 (2) (b), Stats. Note: Under s. 281.65 (2) (b), Stats., “nonpoint source” means a land management activity that contributes to runoff, seepage or percolation which adversely affects or threatens the quality of waters of this state and which is not a point source under s. 283.01 (12), Stats. (60) “Operations” means labor, materials and chemicals used regularly, and work activities performed on a recurring basis throughout the year that are intended to meet routine, daily functional needs. Work activities may include any of the following:
