Wisconsin Regulators Drop Ball On Waste Plant Oversight

Wisconsin regulators are not doing enough to monitor municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants, according to a new state audit.

The audit, released this month, found that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) didn't consistently follow its own policies when sending enforcement letters about violations. It found the DNR only sent notices for 33 of the 558 instances they should have over the past decade, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.

“The DNR permits about 1,250 municipal wastewater treatment plants, industrial wastewater treatment facilities and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). It’s required to make sure those entities comply with permit terms, but the audit found the DNR didn’t consistently follow its own rules and at times violated statutory requirements,” the Wisconsin Gazette reported.

In fact, regulators “failed to follow their own policies for dealing with violators of water pollution laws more than 90 percent of the time,” the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

The problem appears to be understaffing. The radio report said the agency “doesn't have enough staff to investigate potentially dangerous water runoff.” The department said it is working to address the problems.

State Sen. Robert Cowles, co-chair of the Legislative Audit Committee, weighed in, per Wisconsin Public Radio.

"At this point we don't know if… these are a bunch of minor problems or they're serious problems." Cowles said. "The audit didn't get into that part of it. This will take additional discussions and probably an extensive public hearing to zero in on that part of it."

"It appears that area of the DNR has been understaffed for a decade," he said. "And that's why this is not a problem of this administration or that, it's been a problem in two administrations and if they looked back further it might have been a problem too. They looked at 10 years in the audit and that's the fair way to do it."

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