Wisconsin Administrative Code › Department of Health Services › DHS 1-19 - Management and Technology and Strategic Finance › Chapter DHS 18 - Environmental policy implementation › Section DHS 18.04 - Definitions

Current through June 24, 2024
As used in this chapter:
(1) "Action" means any activity initiated or
				otherwise undertaken by the department, including a proposal for legislation,
				which may affect the quality of the environment of human beings.
(2) "Alternatives" means actions other than
				the proposed action which may be reasonably available to achieve the same or
				altered purpose of the proposed action, including the alternative of no
				action.
(3) "DEIS" means draft
				environmental impact statement.
(4)
				"Department" means the department of health services.
(5) "Environmental assessment" or "EA" means
				a concise public document prepared by or at the direction of the department
				which provides sufficient evidence and analysis concerning a proposed type II
				action to enable the department to determine whether to prepare an
				environmental impact statement or issue a finding of no significant impact, and
				it includes the study, development and description of alternatives.
(6) "Environmental impact statement" or "EIS"
				means a detailed, written analytical report prepared by or at the direction of
				the department, which describes the anticipated effects on the environment of a
				proposed major action. An "EIS" is meant to adequately inform department
				decisionmakers and the public about the environmental consequences of an action
				in a way that will assist and guide decisionmaking.
(7) "FEIS" means final environmental impact
				statement.
(8) "Finding of no
				significant impact" means a conclusion of an environmental assessment that the
				proposed action is not a major action which will significantly affect the
				quality of the human environment and that preparation of an EIS is therefore
				not required.
(9) "Human
				environment" or "environment of human beings" means the natural and physical
				surroundings of people and their relationship with those surroundings. It
				includes the economic and social aspects of the surroundings of people only
				when these are inter-related with the natural and physical aspects of those
				surroundings.
(10) "Major action"
				means an action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.
				Actions are called "major" when they significantly affect the environment of
				human beings. "Major" reinforces but does not have a meaning independent of
				"significantly."
(11) "Program"
				means a broad area of the department's responsibility, namely, health, adult
				corrections, juvenile corrections, mental disabilities, social services,
				economic assistance, or vocational rehabilitation.
(12) "Resource" means water, air, land,
				plants, animals, energy, historic properties, vistas, wilderness, or that
				tranquillity which is affected by noise.
(13) "Scoping" means a process conducted at
				the outset of preparation of an EIS which involves asking for the views of
				other governmental agencies and the interested public about what should be in
				the EIS, the issues it should address, and the relatively more significant
				issues that should be subjected to in-depth analysis.
(14) "Secretary" means the secretary of the
				Wisconsin department of health services.
(15) "Significantly affecting" means, in
				reference to actions, having considerable and important impacts on the quality
				of the environment, either in terms of the breadth of impact or the severity of
				impact.
(16) "WEPA" means the
				Wisconsin environmental policy act, s.
				1.11,
				Stats.