Open MDE: Additional Information

A primary goal of the Department is to attain and maintain a high rate of compliance with environmental laws. The Department seeks to implement a comprehensive monitoring and inspection program that:

resolves violations of environmental laws that are discovered through an inspection, investigation or audit;
ensures that MDE’s enforcement resources are focused primarily on the most serious violations, and, willful violators;
ensures that each instance of noncompliance is reviewed and resolved in a manner that is timely, just and in proportion to the degree of harm done and the willfulness of the violator after due consideration of the relevant facts and circumstances surrounding the noncompliance. Timely and just enforcement actions achieve a timely return to compliance, deter future violations by the violator and other entities engaged in similar activities, and eliminate any economic advantage received by the violator.

This is done while also ensuring a sufficient compliance monitoring presence for other provisions of environmental law for which the Department has an obligation and responsibility to enforce. Timely and effective enforcement action returns a site or facility to compliance as expeditiously as possible, ensures compensation for the human health or environmental harm done by the violation, and serves to deter future violations, both at the subject site or facility as well as at other sites or facilities.

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