Wisconsin's Standards Oversight Council

In Wisconsin, as in many states, the federal, State and local agencies rely upon the same technical standards to implement programs and ordinances. The Standards Oversight Council (SOC) was launched in 1996 to organize and improve the development, updating, and distribution of conservation technical standards. SOC has proved extremely successful and valuable to the agencies in setting priorities for new standards, identifying which standards need updating, and coordinating a public process for all stakeholders for both urban and rural practices

It is important to clarify that SOC does not write standards; it oversees an interagency process to do this task. The SOC does not “own” any standards, the cooperating agencies continue to serve as custodians for their own standards. When a new or revised standard is needed, SOC determines who will take the lead and gets things moving. The SOC consists of one employee, the SOC Coordinator, plus personnel from cooperating agencies and organizations, including the state Departments of Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Commerce. For a particular standard, SOC organizes a team of primary stakeholders including private businesses, organizations, and agencies, and assists with scheduling and conducting the meetings, and seeing the standard through to completion. SOC deals with different mandates, goals, policies, deadlines, and political pressures, such as the recent updating of the 590 nutrient management standard.  For more information, visit the Wisconsin SOC Web site.
Your contact is Renae Anderson, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 608-662-4422 x 227.