Wisconsin

RR Sites Map

Agency Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

The RR Sites Map is the web map the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) publishes of contaminated properties and of the other investigation and cleanup work its Remediation and Redevelopment (RR) Program tracks. DNR says the map links to BRRTS, its Bureau for Remediation and Redevelopment Tracking System, by way of BRRTS on the Web: an activity on the map links to its record there.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 does not name a state's map viewer among its standard record sources. The map is a way to see, around one property, the activities recorded in BRRTS together with landfills and waste sites, Superfund sites and properties with continuing obligations. What the map leaves out decides what an empty map means.

What the map shows

DNR's layer page describes these groups, among others:

Open and closed activities. Open activities are those where soil, groundwater or other media are contaminated and work is still under way. Closed activities are ERP and LUST activities that DNR found met the requirements for case closure. DNR notes that one activity may cover less than a property or several properties.
Continuing Obligations Apply, and two layers for contamination that crossed a property line: properties whose contamination reached other properties or rights of way, and properties reached by contamination from elsewhere. See Continuing obligations and residual contamination.
Other activity types: facility-wide agreements, sediment sites, Materials Management sites, No Action Required sites, liability clarification letters, and VPLE properties that received a certificate of completion.
Superfund NPL: sites on EPA's National Priorities List, including proposed and deleted sites and Superfund alternative sites.
Financial layers: sites where DNR gave grants, loans or reimbursements or hired a consultant, among them the Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Fund, Ready for Reuse, Wisconsin Assessment Monies, Sustainable Urban Development Zone funding, Site Assessment Grants (awarded September 2000 to November 2009) and Green Space Grants (awarded April 2004 to March 2009). DNR says this group leaves out sites cleaned up with Petroleum Environmental Cleanup Fund Awards (PECFA).
Waste layers: points and areas for landfills and historical waste sites, active municipal solid waste, industrial, and construction and demolition landfills. DNR says its landfill outlines only approximate the limits of waste, some landfills are shown as a point only, and the mapped locations should not be the sole basis for a compliance decision. For an accurate boundary it points to the landfill file kept at a DNR regional headquarters.
Wells and land: a 1,200-foot landfill buffer, which DNR files with its drinking water and groundwater layers, a well inventory placed at the center of each PLSS section, tax parcels, and topographic and air photo base maps.

The map can also open the Wisconsin Historical Aerial Imagery Finder for a location: right-click the map and choose View Historical Imagery.

What the map leaves out

DNR's pages give two overlapping lists. The map page says the map does not include:

spills of hazardous substances that were contained or cleaned up at once, with no cleanup case opened;
activities that have not been mapped yet;
soil contamination left above residual contaminant levels (ch. NR 720, Wis. Adm. Code) at cleanups completed before August 1, 2002;
discharges never reported to DNR.

The layer page says the open and closed activity layers also leave out activities where DNR required no action, VPLE activities, and properties affected by contamination from another property. No Action Required activities and properties affected by contamination from elsewhere have layers of their own, and so do VPLE properties that have a certificate of completion; VPLE activities still in the process are on no layer. DNR says some older No Action Required activities are not mapped because there was not enough information to place them.

So a clear map within the search distance is not a clear record. Search BRRTS by address and by name as well, and turn on the layers for the other activity types the open and closed layers leave out.

Where to look a site up

Launch the RR Sites Map. Its search box finds a site by address, by facility ID, by the activity's name or by its BRRTS number, and its Find Locations tools find a tax parcel ID or a PLSS location.
Click an activity, or use the Identify tool, and choose View Activity Details on BOTW for the record and its documents.
Layer descriptions are on DNR's RR Sites Map layer information page.

Getting the file

For the complete file on an activity, the map page sends you to an RR program specialist, on DNR's RR Program staff contacts page, if DNR, the Department of Safety and Professional Services or the Department of Commerce oversaw it, and to DATCP's Agricultural Chemical Cleanup Program if DATCP oversaw it. DNR's general records route is on Public Records Request.

Sources

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