281.37 Wetland mitigation grant program.
SUBCHAPTER IV
WATER AND SEWAGE FACILITIES; SEPTAGE DISPOSAL
281.41 Approval of plans.
281.43 Joint sewerage systems.
281.45 House connections.
281.47 Sewage drains; sewage discharge into certain lakes.
281.48 Servicing septic tanks, soil absorption fields, holding tanks, grease interceptors and privies.
281.49 Disposal of septage in municipal sewage systems.
SUBCHAPTER V
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
281.51 Financial assistance program; local water quality planning.
281.53 Municipal clean drinking water grants.
281.55 Financial assistance program.
281.56 Financial assistance program; sewerage systems.
281.57 Financial assistance program; point source pollution abatement.
281.58 Clean water fund program; financial assistance.
281.59 Environmental improvement fund; financial management.
281.605 Outstanding loans under the former land recycling loan program.
281.61 Safe drinking water loan program.
281.62 Other drinking water quality activities.
281.625 Drinking water loan guarantee program.
281.63 Financial assistance program; combined sewer overflow abatement.
281.65 Financial assistance; nonpoint source water pollution abatement.
281.66 Urban nonpoint source water pollution abatement and storm water management program.
281.665 Municipal flood control and riparian restoration program.
281.67 Watershed projects.
281.68 Lake management planning grants and lake monitoring and protection contracts.
281.69 Lake management and classification grants and contracts.
281.695 Aids to municipalities for prevention and abatement of water pollution.
281.70 River protection grants.
281.71 Lake management project grants; river protection grants; purchases.
281.72 River protection; contracts with nonprofit organizations.
SUBCHAPTER VI
COMPENSATION
281.75 Compensation for well contamination and abandonment.
281.77 Damage to water supplies.
SUBCHAPTER VII
GREAT LAKES REMEDIAL ACTION
281.83 Remedial action in the Great Lakes and their tributaries.
281.85 Great Lakes protection fund share.
281.87 Great Lakes contaminated sediment removal.
SUBCHAPTER VIII
GENERAL PROVISIONS; ENFORCEMENT
281.91 State agency personnel to report water pollution.
281.93 Hearings on certain water use actions.
281.94 Investigation of alleged water withdrawal violations.
281.95 Remedies; water withdrawal violations.
281.96 Visitorial powers of department.
281.97 Records; inspection.
281.99 Administrative forfeitures for safe drinking water violations.
DEFINITIONS
281.01
281.01
Definitions. In this chapter, unless the context requires otherwise:
281.01(3)
(3) “Department" means the department of natural resources.
281.01(4)
(4) “Garbage" means discarded materials resulting from the handling, processing, storage and consumption of food.
281.01(5)
(5) “Industrial wastes" includes liquid or other wastes resulting from any process of industry, manufacture, trade or business or the development of any natural resource.
281.01(6)
(6) “Municipality" means any city, town, village, county, county utility district, town sanitary district, public inland lake protection and rehabilitation district or metropolitan sewage district.
281.01(7)
(7) “Other wastes" includes all other substances, except industrial wastes and sewage, which pollute any of the surface waters of the state. The term also includes unnecessary siltation resulting from operations such as the washing of vegetables or raw food products, gravel washing, stripping of lands for development of subdivisions, highways, quarries and gravel pits, mine drainage, cleaning of vehicles or barges or gross neglect of land erosion.
281.01(8)
(8) “Owner" means the state, county, town, town sanitary district, city, village, metropolitan sewerage district, corporation, firm, company, institution or individual owning or operating any water supply, sewerage or water system or sewage and refuse disposal plant.
281.01(9)
(9) “Person" means an individual, owner, operator, corporation, limited liability company, partnership, association, municipality, interstate agency, state agency or federal agency.
281.01(10)
(10) “Pollution" includes contaminating or rendering unclean or impure the 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.
281.01(11)
(11) “Refuse" means all matters produced from industrial or community life, subject to decomposition, not defined as sewage.
281.01(12)
(12) “Secretary" means the secretary of natural resources.
281.01(13)
(13) “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), with such surface water or groundwater as may be present.
281.01(14)
(14) “Sewerage system" means all structures, conduits and pipe lines by which sewage is collected and disposed of, except plumbing inside and in connection with buildings served, and service pipes from building to street main.
281.01(15)
(15) “Solid waste" means any garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant or air pollution control facility and other discarded or salvageable materials, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous materials resulting from industrial, commercial, mining and agricultural operations, and from community activities, but does not include solids or dissolved material in domestic sewage, or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or industrial discharges which are point sources subject to permits under ch.
283, or source material, as defined in s.
254.31 (10), special nuclear material, as defined in s.
254.31 (11), or by-product material, as defined in s.
254.31 (1).
281.01(16)
(16) “System or plant" includes water and sewerage systems and sewage and refuse disposal plants.
281.01(18)
(18) “Waters of the state" includes those portions of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior within the boundaries of this state, and all lakes, bays, rivers, streams, springs, ponds, wells, impounding reservoirs, marshes, watercourses, drainage systems and other surface water or groundwater, natural or artificial, public or private, within this state or its jurisdiction.
281.01(19)
(19) “Water supply" means the sources and their surroundings from which water is supplied for drinking or domestic purposes.
281.01(20)
(20) “Waterworks" or “water system" means all structures, conduits and appurtenances by means of which water is delivered to consumers except piping and fixtures inside buildings served, and service pipes from building to street main.
281.01 History
History: 1995 a. 227;
1999 a. 9;
2001 a. 6.
WATER RESOURCES
Subch. II of ch. 281 Cross-reference
Cross-reference: See also chs.
NR 110 and
121, Wis. adm. code.
281.11
281.11
Statement of policy and purpose. The department shall serve as the central unit of state government to protect, maintain and improve the quality and management of the waters of the state, ground and surface, public and private. Continued pollution of the waters of the state has aroused widespread public concern. It endangers public health and threatens the general welfare. A comprehensive action program directed at all present and potential sources of water pollution whether home, farm, recreational, municipal, industrial or commercial is needed to protect human life and health, fish and aquatic life, scenic and ecological values and domestic, municipal, recreational, industrial, agricultural and other uses of water. The purpose of this subchapter is to grant necessary powers and to organize a comprehensive program under a single state agency for the enhancement of the quality management and protection of all waters of the state, ground and surface, public and private. To the end that these vital purposes may be accomplished, this subchapter and all rules and orders promulgated under this subchapter shall be liberally construed in favor of the policy objectives set forth in this subchapter. In order to achieve the policy objectives of this subchapter, it is the express policy of the state to mobilize governmental effort and resources at all levels, state, federal and local, allocating such effort and resources to accomplish the greatest result for the people of the state as a whole. Because of the importance of Lakes Superior and Michigan and Green Bay as vast water resource reservoirs, water quality standards for those rivers emptying into Lakes Superior and Michigan and Green Bay shall be as high as is practicable.
281.11 History
History: 1995 a. 227 s.
374.
281.11 Cross-reference
Cross-reference: See also s.
NR 103.05, Wis. adm. code.
281.11 Annotation
A possessor of land who withdraws ground water for beneficial purposes is not liable for interference with another's water use unless the withdrawal causes unreasonable harm by lowering the water table or artesian pressure, the ground water forms an underground stream, or the withdrawal has a substantial effect on a watercourse or lake. State v. Michels Pipeline Construction, Inc.,
63 Wis. 2d 278,
217 N.W.2d 339 (1974).
281.11 Annotation
A municipality's supplying of water to its inhabitant is not a proprietary function immune from the provisions of ch. 144 [now chs. 280 to 299]. The protection of public health is a matter of state-wide concern over which the legislature may exercise its police powers to insure a healthful water supply. Village of Sussex v. DNR,
68 Wis. 2d 187,
228 N.W.2d 173 (1975).
281.11 Annotation
The state intended to create a comprehensive program for well construction supervision through the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Under a liberal construction of its powers, DNR cannot be limited to regulating how groundwater is obtained. If a municipal body could make well construction contingent upon its own permit, based on its own standards, a DNR permit would be wholly insignificant, and the legislature's stated goal of creating a uniform scheme to supervise the extraction of groundwater would be eviscerated. The state legislature's explicit grant of authority to DNR preempts a municipal ordinance regulating the withdrawal of groundwater. Lake Beulah Management District v. Village of East Troy,
2010 WI App 127,
329 Wis. 2d 641,
791 N.W.2d 385,
09-2021.
281.11 Annotation
Through this section and s. 281.12, the legislature has delegated the state's public trust duties to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in the context of its regulation of high capacity wells and their potential effect on navigable waters. For all proposed high capacity wells, the legislature has expressly granted DNR the authority and a general duty to review all permit applications and to decide whether to issue the permit, to issue the permit with conditions, or to deny the application, which provides DNR with the discretion to undertake the review it deems necessary for all proposed high capacity wells, including the authority and a general duty to consider the environmental impact of a proposed high capacity well on waters of the state. Lake Beulah Management District v. DNR,
2011 WI 54,
335 Wis. 2d 47,
799 N.W.2d 73,
08-3170. See also Clean Wisconsin, Inc. v. DNR,
2021 WI 72,
398 Wis. 2d 433,
961 N.W.2d 611,
18-0059.
