NR 815.02(2)
(2)
Specific exclusions. The following are not governed by this chapter:
NR 815.02(2)(a)
(a) Any injection well on a drilling platform or other site that is located in its entirety beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of the state.
NR 815.02(2)(b)
(b) Any private onsite wastewater treatment system approved according to the provisions of ch.
SPS 383 that is used to dispose of sanitary waste from an individual single-family dwelling.
NR 815.02(2)(c)
(c) Any well that is not used to place a fluid underground.
NR 815.02 History
History: CR 01-104: cr.
Register October 2004 No. 586, eff. 11-1-04; correction in (2) (b) made under s.
13.92 (4) (b) 7., Stats.,
Register January 2012 No. 673.
NR 815.03
NR 815.03 Definitions. In this chapter:
NR 815.03(1)
(1) “Approval" means any of the following: authorization by administrative rule, written letter of authorization or issuance of a permit.
NR 815.03(2)
(2) “Aquifer" means a geological layer consisting of unconsolidated material, usually sand or gravel or both, or bedrock lying below the ground surface that is entirely or partially saturated with water and permeable enough to allow water to be extracted, as from a well.
NR 815.03(3)
(3) “Backfill" means a substance containing, but not limited to, any of the following: sand, gravel, cement, mill tailings, mill refuse, fly ash or other solids used as part of the mining process or for the purpose of closing a mine shaft or reclaiming an area subjected to mining activities.
NR 815.03(4)
(4) “Bedrock" means any naturally formed consolidated or coherent material of the earth's crust, composed of one or more minerals, rock fragments or organic material that underlies any soil or other unconsolidated surficial material or is exposed at the surface. Bedrock includes, but is not limited to limestone, dolomite, sandstone, shale and igneous and metamorphic crystalline rock, including granite, rhyolite, quartzite, gabbro, basalt, gneiss, schist, diorite and greenstone.
NR 815.03(5)
(5) “Borehole" means a circular hole that is deeper than it is wide, constructed in earth material for the purpose of either installing a well or obtaining geologic or groundwater related data.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: The department recognizes a borehole to be a type of a drillhole.
NR 815.03(6)
(6) “By-product solids" means waste materials from the animal product or food processing industry including, but not limited to remains of butchered animals, paunch manure and vegetable waste materials such as leaves, cuttings, peelings and actively fermenting sweet corn silage.
NR 815.03(7)
(7) “Cesspool" means a drywell that solely receives untreated sanitary waste and which sometimes has an open bottom or perforated sides or both.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: As used in this chapter, the term includes those excavations that are defined as cesspools in s.
SPS 381.01 (53).
NR 815.03(8)
(8) “Closure" means ceasing the discharge of a fluid to a well.
NR 815.03(9)
(9) “Conversion" means a change in the operation of an injection well that results in a change in the existing classification of the injection well or results in a change in the injection well's type designation within a specific class of injection wells.
NR 815.03(10)
(10) “Department" means the department of natural resources.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Discharge" in s.
292.01 (3), Stats., means, but is not limited to, any of the following: spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, placing, emitting, emptying or dumping.
NR 815.03(12)
(12) “Domestic wastewater" means the wastewater normally discharged from plumbing facilities in private dwellings or commercial domestic establishments and includes, but is not limited to sanitary, bath, laundry, dishwashing, garbage disposal and cleaning wastes.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: A commercial domestic establishment is a business providing lodging facilities such as, but not limited to, a motel, hotel, boarding house or assisted-living center.
NR 815.03(13)
(13) “Drillhole" means an excavation, opening or driven point well deeper than it is wide that extends more than 10 feet below the ground surface.
NR 815.03(14)
(14) “Drywell" means a well, other than an improved sinkhole or subsurface fluid distribution system, that is completed above the water table so that its bottom or sides are typically dry except when receiving or draining fluids.
NR 815.03(15)
(15) “Dwelling" means a structure, or that part of a structure, which is used or intended to be used as a home, residence or sleeping place by one person or by 2 or more persons maintaining a common household, to the exclusion of all others.
NR 815.03(16)
(16) “Endangerment" means the movement of a fluid containing any substance into an underground source of drinking water, if the presence of the substance may cause a violation of a primary drinking water maximum contaminant level established in
40 CFR part 142 or otherwise adversely affect the health of persons.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: Endangerment, as it applies to Class V injection wells that are not prohibited under subchapter III, is any exceedance of an enforcement standard established under ch.
160, Stats., when measured at a point of standards application as defined in s.
160.01 (5), Stats.
NR 815.03(17)
(17) “Existing injection well" means any injection well constructed or in use prior to November 1, 2004.
NR 815.03(18)
(18) “Fluid" means any material or substance that flows or moves whether a semisolid, liquid, sludge, gas or any other form or state.
NR 815.03(19)
(19) “Formation" means a body of consolidated or unconsolidated geologic materials characterized by a degree of lithologic homogeneity that is prevailingly, but not necessarily, tabular and may be mapped on the earth's surface or traced in the subsurface.
NR 815.03(20)
(20) “Generator" means the person responsible for an act or process that produces hazardous waste.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Groundwater" in s.
160.01 (4), Stats., means any of the waters of the state, as defined in s.
281.01 (18), Stats., occurring in a saturated subsurface geological formation of rock or soil.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Hazardous waste" in s.
291.01 (7), Stats., means any solid waste identified by the department as hazardous waste under s.
291.05 (1),
(2) or
(4), Stats.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Hazardous waste facility" in s.
291.01 (8), Stats., means a site or structure for the treatment, storage or disposal of hazardous waste and includes all of the contiguous property under common ownership or control surrounding the site or structure.
NR 815.03(24)
(24) “Improved sinkhole" means a naturally occurring karst depression or opening, or any other natural crevice found in volcanic terrain or other geologic settings, that has been modified by a person for the purpose of dispersing or otherwise discharging fluids into the subsurface.
NR 815.03(25)
(25) “Injection well" means a well that is used to place a fluid underground.
NR 815.03(26)
(26) “Injection zone" means a geological formation, a portion of a formation or a group of formations that is intersected by a well and that receives or may receive a fluid from an injection well.
NR 815.03(27)
(27) “Land disposal system" means a facility for disposing of liquid wastes consisting of any of the following:
NR 815.03(28)
(28) “Land treatment" means the discharge of a fluid by means of a system that utilizes the physical, chemical and biological abilities of the soil to decompose any pollutant contained in the fluid. Land treatment systems include:
NR 815.03(28)(f)
(f) Landspreading systems for liquid wastes or organic by-product solids.
NR 815.03(28)(h)
(h) Any other land area receiving liquid wastes, by-product solids or sludge discharges.
NR 815.03(29)
(29) “Large-capacity cesspool" means any cesspool that is designed to receive untreated sanitary waste from 20 or more people per day.
NR 815.03(30)
(30) “Liquid waste" means process wastewater and waste liquid products including, but not limited to silage leachate, whey, whey permeate, whey filtrate, contact cooling water, cooling or boiler water containing water treatment additives, and wash water generated in industrial, commercial and agricultural operations that result in a point source discharge to a land treatment system.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: As used in this chapter, “liquid waste" does not include the following: alcohol fuel production wastes from systems defined as private alcohol fuel production systems under s.
289.44 (1) (c), Stats., that are operated in accordance with s.
283.61 (2), Stats., animal waste regulated under ch.
NR 243 or liquid manure applied in accordance with sound agricultural practices, domestic sewage from systems defined as private sewage systems in s.
145.01 (12), Stats., effluent from publicly owned or privately owned wastewater treatment works regulated under ch.
NR 206, or mining wastes backfilled or otherwise disposed of in a prospecting excavation or a mine in accordance with a permit issued under ch.
NR 131 or
132 or subch.
III of ch. 295, Stats., except runoff, leachate, decantate, or other wastewater collected for disposal on land outside of the permitted prospecting or mining site.
NR 815.03(31)
(31) “Municipal wastewater" means effluent from a publicly owned wastewater treatment works or a privately owned domestic wastewater treatment works.
NR 815.03(32)
(32) “New injection well" means a well that is constructed or first used for underground injection on or after November 1, 2004.
NR 815.03(33)
(33) “Operator" means the person responsible for the supervision, management or operation of any facility or activity subject to regulation through the underground injection control program.
NR 815.03(34)
(34) “Owner" means the person holding title to the property upon which an injection well is located.
NR 815.03(35)
(35) “Permit" means an authorization, license or equivalent control document issued by the state through a regulatory agency that has been delegated responsibility for managing any activity that would be subject to regulation as an injection well through the federal underground injection control program.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: A permit may be issued as an individual, group, area or emergency permit; however, a permit does not include authorization by rule or any draft permit that has not yet been the subject of final action by the regulatory agency.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Person" in s.
990.01 (26), Stats., is to be construed according to common and approved usage and by definition includes all partnerships, associations and bodies politic or corporate.
NR 815.03(37)
(37) “Plugging" means the act of stopping the flow of water, oil or gas into or out of a formation through a well penetrating that formation.
NR 815.03(38)
(38) “Point of injection" means the last accessible point, as determined by the department or other designated regulatory agency, where a sample of a substance may be collected prior to placement of the substance underground through an injection well.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: The point of injection for a subsurface fluid distribution system may be a septic tank or distribution box located prior to the drainfield. The point of injection for a drywell or well may be at or just prior to the wellbore itself.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Pollutant" in s.
283.01 (13), Stats., means any dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, refuse, oil, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive substance, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, municipal and agricultural waste discharged into water.
NR 815.03(40)
(40) “Private onsite wastewater treatment system" has the meaning given for private sewage system in s.
145.01 (12), Stats.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Private sewage system" in s.
145.01 (12), Stats., means a sewage treatment and disposal system serving a single structure with a septic tank and soil absorption field located on the same parcel as the structure. This term also means an alternative sewage system approved by the department of safety and professional services including a substitute for the septic tank or soil absorption field, a holding tank, a system serving more than one structure or a system located on a different parcel than the structure. A private sewage system may be owned by the property owner or by a special purpose district.
NR 815.03(41)
(41) “Privately owned domestic wastewater treatment work" means facilities which treat domestic wastewater, permitted under ch.
283, Stats., and owned and operated by non-municipal entities or enterprises such as, but not limited to, mobile home parks, restaurants, hotels, motels and country clubs.
NR 815.03(42)
(42) “Project" means a group of wells under the control of a single person and managed as a single facility or activity.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: Section
NR 211.03 (11) defines “publicly owned treatment work" as a treatment works which is owned by a municipality and any sewers that convey wastewater to such a treatment works. This definition includes any devices or systems used by a municipality in the storage, treatment, recycling and reclamation of municipal sewage or liquid industrial wastes. The term also means the municipality or local unit of government which has jurisdiction over the indirect discharges to, and the discharges from, such a treatment works.
NR 815.03(44)
(44) “Radioactive waste" means any waste that contains radioactive material in concentrations that exceed those listed in
10 CFR part 20, appendix B, table II, column 2.
NR 815.03(45)
(45) “RCRA" means the solid waste disposal act as amended by the resource conservation and recovery act of 1976, Pub. L. 94-580, as amended by Pub. L. 95-609, Pub. L. 96-510,
42 USC 6901 et seq.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: “Regulatory agency" in s.
160.01 (7), Stats., means the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, the Department of Safety and Professional Services, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Natural Resources and other state agencies which regulate activities, facilities or practices which are related to substances which have been detected in or have a reasonable probability of entering the groundwater resources of the state.
NR 815.03(47)
(47) “Safe drinking water act" or “SDWA" means the safe drinking water act, Pub. L. 93-523, as amended;
42 USC 300f et seq.
NR 815.03(48)
(48) “Sanitary waste" means sewage containing wastes primarily from humans and housekeeping activities, such wastes include those collected from toilets, showers, wash basins, sinks used for cleaning domestic areas, sinks used for domestic food preparation, domestic clothes washing operations, and sinks or washing machines where food and beverage serving dishes, glasses and utensils are cleaned.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: Sanitary waste may be generated at residential, commercial, industrial or recreational facilities provided that the waste is not mixed with the waste from an industrial process. Sanitary waste may also include clearwater, filter backwash or effluent from water treatment devices or similar discharges from other household appliances as approved by the Department of Safety and Professional Services.
NR 815.03(49)
(49) “Schedule of compliance" means a schedule of remedial measures included in a permit, including an enforceable sequence of interim requirements that leads to compliance with a specified statute or administrative rule.
NR 815.03(50)
(50) “Septic system" means a sewage treatment and disposal system consisting of a septic tank and a soil absorption field that is used to disperse or otherwise discharge sanitary waste underground.
NR 815.03 Note
Note: A septic system may also be a private onsite wastewater treatment system or a private sewage system as defined in s.
145.01 (12), Stats.
NR 815.03(51)
(51) “Sewage" means the water-carried wastes created in and to be conducted away from residences, industrial establishments and public buildings as defined in s.
101.01 (12), Stats., with any surface water or groundwater as may be present in the water-carried wastes.
