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Wisconsin

Licensed solid waste landfills

Agency Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
ASTM search distance 0.5 mile

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) regulates solid waste landfills, and many kinds of solid, hazardous and infectious waste facilities and transporters need a DNR approval or license to operate. DNR's landfills page says a landfill must collect and treat the liquids and gases it produces, must monitor for contamination and report the data to DNR, and that money is set aside during operation so that monitoring and upkeep continue after closure; DNR says its staff inspect landfills regularly. The licensing staff are in DNR's Waste and Materials Management Program.

In a Phase I ESA

DNR's lists of licensed landfills are a Wisconsin form of the state landfill and solid waste disposal site records that ASTM E1527-21 lists as a standard source. The general reading of a landfill listing is on the landfills and solid waste page. Three Wisconsin details shape the search.

  • The lists are of licensed facilities. Old disposal sites, some never licensed, are a separate record, the Historic Registry of Waste Disposal Sites, and landfills built before 1970 without a DNR license are what DNR calls historic fill sites.
  • Monitoring data are public. DNR's monitoring system, GEMS, is its main store of most monitoring data from solid and hazardous waste facilities, and GEMS on the Web shows each facility's data from the time it began reporting. DNR says the facilities include closed and operating landfills, municipal and industrial, a few hazardous waste facilities, and a limited number of cleanup sites with long-term monitoring. DNR warns the data are raw and unsummarized, and advises getting help from someone experienced before interpreting them.
  • A landfill's cleanup is a separate record. DNR's RR Program oversees cleanups at closed solid waste facilities, and its database lists closed landfills among the sources of Environmental Repair Program activities. Search BRRTS for the landfill as well.

Where to look a site up

DNR's waste facility pages link these lists, which this handbook did not open:

Also:

  • GEMS on the Web, for landfill monitoring data.
  • The RR Sites Map has layers for active municipal solid waste, industrial, and construction and demolition landfills, for landfill and historical waste site points and areas, and for a 1,200-foot buffer around them. DNR says its landfill outlines only approximate the limits of waste and should not be the sole basis for a compliance decision. See RR Sites Map.
  • DNR says a new water supply well needs its approval if it is to go less than 1,200 feet from a waste disposal site; its form for a well near a landfill is Form 3300-209 (Application for Landfill Variance).

Getting the file

DNR's layer page says an accurate landfill boundary is in DNR's landfill file at one of its regional headquarters. The regional licensing, reporting and compliance specialists, listed by county on DNR's regional specialists page, can answer questions on waste facility licensing and landfill tonnage reports. DNR prefers records requests by email, to DNRRecordsResponse@wisconsin.gov, and accepts them in any format; see Public Records Request.

Sources

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources pages, read October 13, 2026, no modified date shown:

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