Wisconsin Administrative Code › Department of Natural Resources › NR 100-199 - Environmental Protection General › Chapter NR 140 - Groundwater Quality › Subchapter I - General › Section NR 140.02 - Regulatory framework

Current through June 24, 2024
(1) This chapter supplements the regulatory
				  authority elsewhere in the statutes and administrative rules. The department
				  will continue to exercise the powers and duties in those regulatory programs,
				  consistent with the enforcement standards and preventive action limits for
				  substances in groundwater under this chapter. This chapter provides guidelines
				  and procedures for the exercise of regulatory authority which is established
				  elsewhere in the statutes and administrative rules, and does not create
				  independent regulatory authority.
(2) The department may adopt regulations
				  which establish specific design and management criteria for regulated
				  facilities or activities, if the regulations will ensure that the regulated
				  facilities and activities will not cause the concentration of a substance in
				  groundwater affected by the facilities or activities to exceed the enforcement
				  standards and preventive action limits under this chapter at a point of
				  standards application. The department may adopt more stringent regulations
				  under authority elsewhere in the statutes based on the best currently available
				  technology for regulated activities and practices which ensure a greater degree
				  of groundwater protection or when necessary to comply with state or federal
				  laws.
(3) Preventive action limits
				  serve to inform the department of potential groundwater contamination problems,
				  establish the level of groundwater contamination at which the department is
				  required to commence efforts to control the contamination and provide a basis
				  for design and management practice criteria in administrative rules. Preventive
				  action limits are applicable both to controlling new releases of contamination
				  as well as to restoring groundwater quality contaminated by past releases of
				  contaminants. Although a preventive action limit is not intended to always
				  require remedial action, activities affecting groundwater must be regulated to
				  minimize the level of substances to the extent technically and economically
				  feasible, and to maintain compliance with the preventive action limits unless
				  compliance with the preventive action limits is not technically and
				  economically feasible.
(4) The
				  department may take any actions within the context of regulatory programs
				  established in statutes or rules outside of this chapter, if those actions are
				  necessary to protect public health and welfare or prevent a significant
				  damaging effect on groundwater or surface water quality for present or future
				  consumptive or nonconsumptive uses, whether or not an enforcement standard and
				  preventive action limit for a substance have been adopted under this chapter.
				  Nothing in this chapter authorizes an impact on groundwater quality which would
				  cause surface water quality standards contained in chs.
				  NR 102 to 105 to be attained or
				  exceeded.