(1)    Whenever the department has reason to believe that a violation of 80-3-301 through 80-3-306; 80-3-311 through 80-3-315; 80-3-321 through 80-3-323, MCA or any adopted rule thereunder has occurred and the department finds it in the public interest to assess a civil penalty, it may initiate a civil penalty action pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act.

(2)    Each violation shall be considered a separate offense and is subject to a separate penalty not to exceed $1,000. A repeat violation shall be considered a first violation if it occurred two or more years after the previous violation.

(3)    The penalty matrixes set forth in this rule establish the basic penalty value for each offense. Factors dealing with the violation may cause the matrix penalty to increase or decrease. Examples of such factors would be the firm's history of compliance or non-compliance, or the extent of the harm to agriculture or environment.