Exempt Soil Management: A Self-Implementing Option for Soil Excavated During a Response Action under Wis. Admin. Code chs. NR 700 through NR 750 (RR 103) is now available.

This guidance provides an optional approach for responsible parties and their environmental consultants to use when soil is characterized and excavated as part of a response action (i.e., cleanup action), and the soil does not need to be managed at a licensed solid waste facility or through a site-specific exemption in Wis. Admin. Code chs. NR 718 or the NR 500 rule series. The document provides responsible parties clarity on what types of substances – if identified in soil – could generally be managed as “exempt soil” in accordance with state law without the department’s pre-approval or tracking.

However, the person placing or accepting the soil needs to comply with limited locational criteria. The DNR believes that providing this guidance will help responsible parties and their consultants save money and make more timely and consistent decisions on how to manage this type of excavated soil during a Wis. Admin. Code ch. NR 700 cleanup action.

The guidance does not apply to soil excavated as part of a construction project, utility project or transportation project.  However, if those projects also involve an NR 700 response action, this guidance also applies to the soil excavated as a direct result of that response action.

Public comments, and the responses to them, that were received during the review period last May, can be viewed on the Wisconsin DNR’s public input web page.