(1) TRADITIONAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT
AND COLLECTION SYSTEM PROJECTS. A municipality may receive financial assistance
under this chapter for a publicly-owned wastewater treatment works scored
project, including a treatment plant or sewage collection system project, that
meets any of the following criteria:
(a) The
project is necessary to prevent a municipality from significantly exceeding a
wastewater effluent limitation contained in a permit issued under ch. 283,
Stats. All of the following types of projects are included under this
paragraph:
1. Projects for which construction
will completely take place inside the fence or on site of a wastewater
treatment plant, such as projects to build or modify headworks, clarifiers,
aeration basins, stabilization ponds, sludge processing equipment, sludge
storage facilities, or on-site administrative buildings, and projects to build
or modify facilities for the receiving, storage, or treatment of septage. The
department may determine that a lift station pumping all of the wastewater flow
directly to the wastewater treatment plant with no other influent pump at the
plant site is part of a project that takes place inside the fence. The
department may also determine, based on the layout and function of the
treatment work, that other facilities, such as a septage receiving station that
conveys the septage directly into the wastewater treatment plant, are
considered part of the work inside the fence.
2. Projects for which construction takes
place outside of the fence of the wastewater treatment plant that are necessary
to maintain or improve the integrity and performance of wastewater treatment
works facilities serving the municipality, including sanitary sewer replacement
or rehabilitation, sanitary sewer lining, publicly-owned lateral lining, lift
station upgrades, and construction of new interceptors, lift stations,
pretreatment facilities, septage receiving stations, and other treatment works
facilities outside of the fence of the wastewater treatment plant.
(b) The project is necessary to
achieve compliance with an enforceable wastewater requirement changed or
established after May 17, 1988, if the municipality is in substantial
compliance with its permit issued under ch. 283, Stats.
(c) The project is necessary to correct
violations of an effluent limitation contained in a permit issued under ch.
283, Stats.
(d) The project is
necessary to eliminate actual or imminent pollution of groundwater or surface
water or a threat to human health in unsewered areas within a municipality. All
of the following types of projects are included under this paragraph:
1. Projects for construction of a new
wastewater treatment plant or upgrade of an existing plant to accept and treat
wastewater from a previously unsewered area, such as projects to build or add
capacity to clarifiers, aeration basins, stabilization ponds, or sludge
facilities.
2. Sewage collection
system projects to install sewer pipes where there were none and interceptors
to carry wastewater to a new or existing wastewater treatment plant.
Note: The projects described under this
subsection are considered "traditional wastewater treatment plant and
collection system projects" and are those that use common infrastructure and
processes to collect and treat wastewater, including pipes to collect
wastewater from homes and businesses and carry the water to a treatment plant
that uses techniques and equipment to filter and settle out solids, aerate the
water to encourage natural processes of growth of bacteria and other organisms
to consume much of the waste, disinfect the processed water, and process the
sludge removed from the wastewater. Traditional projects tend to collect and
treat point-source pollution only, unless storm sewers contribute to the flow
of water to the wastewater treatment plant or the system has infiltration or
inflow problems. The purpose of some traditional projects is to fix these types
of excess flow issues. Traditional wastewater treatment is discussed in the
Primer for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Systems, Publication EPA
832-R-04-001, dated September 2004, available on the U.S. environmental
protection agency's website at
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-09/documents/primer.pdf.
(2) INDIVIDUAL
WASTEWATER TREATMENT SYSTEMS.
(a) A project
that is eligible under sub. (1) may consist of individual systems that serve
one or more properties for the purpose of treating sanitary waste if the
municipality meets all of the following criteria:
1. The municipality owns each individual
system.
2. The municipality is
responsible for the proper installation, operation, and maintenance of each
individual system.
3. The
municipality has unlimited access to each individual system at all reasonable
times for the purposes of inspection, monitoring, construction, maintenance,
operation, rehabilitation, and replacement of the system.
4. The municipality establishes a
comprehensive program for the regulation, inspection, operation, and
maintenance of individual systems, and for monitoring the impact of the systems
on groundwater where required by the department.
5. The municipality complies with all other
applicable requirements, limitations, and conditions for projects funded under
this chapter.
(b) The
access required under par. (a) 3. shall be established through easements,
covenants running with the land, or local ordinance. The department may require
that the program established under par. (a) 4. include periodic testing of
water from existing potable water wells and monitoring of aquifers in the
area.
(c) Individual wastewater
treatment systems include cluster systems, mound systems, holding tanks, septic
tanks, pipes to transport wastewater, and other alternative systems for small
communities.
(3) STORM
WATER PROJECTS. A municipality may receive financial assistance under this
chapter in accordance with subch. III or IV for a publicly owned project that
is necessary to control storm water runoff pollution in order to achieve water
quality standards.
(4) INELIGIBLE
PROJECTS. The department may determine that an entire project or a portion of a
project is ineligible for CWFP financial assistance. If the department
determines that a portion of a project is ineligible, it shall specifically
identify the ineligible portion and the associated costs, or prorate the amount
of financial assistance provided to reflect the appropriate proportion of
eligible to ineligible project costs, or both, in the financial assistance
agreement. All of the following types of projects or portions of projects are
not eligible for financial assistance under this chapter:
(a) Projects of a municipality that is
failing to substantially comply with conditions or requirements of s.
281.58 or
281.59, Stats., ch. Adm 35, ch.
NR 162, an existing financial assistance agreement or interest rate subsidy
agreement with the CWFP, a financial assistance agreement with the safe
drinking water loan program under s.
281.61, Stats., or the terms of
a federal or state grant used to pay the costs to plan, design, or construct a
treatment works or BMP.
(b) As
specified in s. 281.58 (8) (a) 2, Stats., privately-owned connection
laterals and sewer lines that transport wastewater from structures to
municipally-owned or privately-owned wastewater systems.
(c) Public sanitary sewer mains,
interceptors, and individual systems that exclusively serve development not in
existence as of the date the department receives an application submitted by a
municipality under this chapter.
(d) Any project from which no construction
costs are to be funded through the CWFP, unless another governmental agency is
providing financing for the construction costs and the department receives
acceptable documentation of the other agency's commitment, as determined by the
department, except if purchasing existing treatment works is the general scope
of the project.
(e) Dams, pipes,
conveyance systems, and BMPs, including storm sewer rerouting and land
acquisition, when intended solely for drainage and flood control.
(f) Any project of an unsewered municipality
that will be disposing of wastewater in the treatment works of another
municipality and the unsewered municipality has not executed an intermunicipal
agreement under s. 66.0301, Stats., with the other
municipality to receive, treat, and dispose of the wastewater of the unsewered
municipality.
(g) Any project that
includes 2 or more municipalities that utilize shared or interconnected
treatment works or a BMP, unless the municipalities served by the project
execute an intermunicipal agreement that meets the requirements described in s.
NR 162.05 (4)
(h). This paragraph does not apply to a
metropolitan sewerage district in which all municipalities being served have
been annexed into the sewerage district or to a situation in which the
intermunicipal exception under s.
NR 162.05 (5) has been met.
(h) Projects that have been substantially
complete for 3 years or longer.
