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Facilities and Enforcement Activities related to the Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Program
Overview of NPDES Program, Data Collection, and Information Sources
Compliance & Enforcement Data Tools
Other Data Tools
This page provides information about federal and state enforcement of non-compliance with Clean Water Act (CWA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits that regulate the discharge of pollutants from point sources to waters of the United States. The CWA requires anyone who wants to discharge pollutants from point sources to first obtain an NPDES permit, or else that discharge will be considered illegal.
The CWA allows EPA to authorize the NPDES Permit Program to state governments, enabling states to perform many of the permitting, administrative, and enforcement aspects of the NPDES Program. Most states currently have authorized NPDES programs . In these states, EPA still retains oversight responsibilities.
In administration and oversight of the NPDES program, EPA places greater priority on major facilities, and requires States to provide more information about the compliance status of these dischargers.
EPA collects key information including:
- the universe of facilities regulated under the NPDES program,
- permit limits for these facilities,
- facility discharge reports that relate to permit limits,
- noncompliance (determined by comparing the discharge report measurement to the permitted limit, or by other means such as inspections),
- the severity of violations (significant noncompliance or SNC for major sources, and Category I violations for smaller non-major permittees),
- whether informal or formal enforcement actions were taken, and
- whether penalties were assessed.
Information about what data is required to be reported is on the Summary of EPA Compliance & Enforcement Data Entry Requirements in ECHO. Information about known data quality problems is found on the Known Data Problems Web page.
Finding NPDES Program Enforcement Data
- What are the types of facilities regulated by EPA and the states under the CWA NPDES Program? How many are there?
- How can I find compliance and enforcement information about facilities with NPDES Permits?
- Can I search for a company or particular facility to see their compliance and enforcement history?
- What is the completeness of permit limit and discharge monitoring data in EPA's data systems?
- How can I find the number of inspections, violations and enforcement activity within a state?
- Where can I find water quality data for the watershed where a facility with an NPDES permit is located?
- Where can I find information about compliance and enforcement activity in a state over time?
- How can I download summary information about federal and state compliance and enforcement activity?
- How can I find information about a specific compliance and enforcement activity across all states?
- Can I download detailed data about all information in ECHO?
- Where can I find water quality information for a watershed of interest to me?
- Where can I find information about specific state compliance and enforcement programs?
- Where can I find more information about specific enforcement cases taken by EPA under the Clean Water Act?
You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.
1: What are the types of facilities regulated by EPA and the states under the CWA NPDES Program? How many are there?
All facilities that discharge pollutants through a point source into waters of the United States are regulated by EPA and states under the NPDES program. These include municipal sources that receive primarily domestic sewage from residential and commercial customers, as well as wastewater from industrial facilities connected to the publicly-owned treatment works (POTWs) sewerage system. Some municipal facilities include combined sewer overflow and sanitary sewer overflow discharges. These also include industrial and commercial facilities, concentrated animal feeding operations, and stormwater related discharging activities.
Currently, there are approximately 45,700 facilities with permits that pertain specifically to the facility (individual permits). About 6,700 of these are major discharges with the other 39,000 being minor discharges. Approximately 71,000 facilities and 50,000 vessels longer than 79 feet that are used in transportation are regulated under a general permit (one that applies to a class or category of discharges) for discharges of other than stormwater.
The majority of facilities covered by the NPDES Program are stormwater discharging facilities. Currently, there are about 1,000 large and medium municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4) permitted with individual permits, and 6,000 small MS4s permitted mostly under general permits. About 95,000 industrial stormwater facilities and 250,000 construction starts are covered by general permits.
Please see table of NPDES Permit Counts by State (PDF) (1 pg, 11K, About PDF) for more information.
2: How can I find compliance and enforcement information about facilities with NPDES Permits?
EPA maintains the Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) Web site. Simply navigate to ECHO, select " Water Data " on the left hand side bar, and choose a retrieval tool based on your state (there are currently two separate water databases, PCS and ICIS-NPDES). Users can then search based on ZIP code, city, or other area of interest. Output can be mapped.
3: Can I search for a company or particular facility to see if they have violations?
Yes. Navigate to ECHO , select " Water Data " on the left hand side bar, and choose a water system based on your state (there are currently two separate water databases, PCS and ICIS-NPDES). Search by facility name.
4: What is the completeness of permit limit and discharge monitoring data in EPA's data systems?
Compliance and enforcement information includes both permit limits and discharge monitoring reports. For major discharges, EPA expects states to enter compliance and enforcement information into the national databases for at least 95% of their permitted facilities. For non-major discharges, EPA does not require compliance and enforcement information to be entered into the national system; however, many states are providing the information voluntarily.
See the most recent statistics on state data entry. States that do not provide the data into the national system are required to have their own tracking systems to review incoming reports for violations.
- State Permit Limit and Discharge Monitoring Data Entry Rates for Major and Non-Major Facilities by State (PDF) (1 pg, 16.16K)
5: How can I find the number of inspections, violations and enforcement activity within a state?
There are several ways to do this. EPA has posted data for 2008 that can be downloaded using the resources below.
- 2008 NPDES Majors Report (PDF) (5pp, 83K) provides basic
state-by-state inspection, violation, enforcement and penalty data by state
for larger facilities.
- 2007 Annual Noncompliance Report for CWA Non-major Sources (PDF)
(15 pp, 233.49K) provides calendar year 2007 violation and enforcement data by state for non-majors. 2008 data will available in September. Earlier reports are available on
EPA's ECHO About Data
page.
- To retrieve data about which facilities received inspections, had violations, or were subject to enforcement, please use EPA's ECHO CWA Permit Compliance Search for more.
6: Where can I find water quality data for the watershed where a facility with an NPDES permit is located?
Using ECHO, when you perform a query, you will see a blue "W" icon that will bring forward several data layers that allow you to see whether a watershed into which a facility is discharging is impaired. Information is not available in all states.
7: Where can I find information about compliance and enforcement activity in a state over time?
You can use the State Review Framework CWA State Trends Report to select a state, examine key program indicators that EPA uses in its evaluation of the state. This tool can also produce a graph showing trends for any selected indicator beginning in 2004.
8: How can I download summary information about federal and state compliance and enforcement activity?
EPA has posted the following national files in three different formats for use. All three files contain the same information. This provides 2008 data for all states. Please download the documentation for explanations of the data
- State Review Framework Frozen National Report (PDF) (10 pp, 67K, About PDF)
- State Review Framework Frozen National Report (CSV) (16K)
- State Review Framework Frozen National Report (XLS) (47K)
9: How can I find information about a specific compliance and enforcement activity across all states?
That information is available as a part of the State Review Framework CWA Multi-State Report.
10: Can I download detailed data about all information in ECHO?
Yes, a data download is provided at ECHO's IDEA Downloads page.
ECHO is a Web interface that draws data from the Integrated Data for Enforcement Analysis (IDEA) system, which integrates facility data from different EPA databases. The data sets were downloaded using data from the March 2009 IDEA refresh, and are updated annually. With respect to providing information pertaining to water, there are two downloads. One for the PCS Data Set: Permit Compliance System for Clean Water Act permitted dischargers (under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System), and another for ICIS-NPDES Data Set: Integrated Compliance Information System for Clean Water Act permitted dischargers (under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System).
11: Where can I find water quality information for a watershed of interest to me?
EPA makes available information about water quality that EPA receives from states on its Watershed Assessment, Tracking and Environmental Results data system.
12: Where can I find information about specific state compliance and enforcement programs?
This information is available through the State Review Framework (SRF). The SRF is a collaborative tool for EPA and states to use to assess a state’s performance in environmental enforcement and compliance assurance programs, and to ensure the implementation of actions to address identified issues. The SRF assesses performance of basic enforcement activities across the CAA Title V, RCRA Subtitle C, and the CWA NPDES programs. The goal is continuous improvement in program performance.
13: Where can I find more information about specific enforcement cases taken by EPA under the Clean Water Act?
There are several sources of information. Please use the resources below.
-
EPA Annual Accomplishments Report
- EPA Annual Results Statistics
-
EPA Information about CWA Priority Areas
-
Access EPA Case and Press Release Search
-
Search ECHO for data about EPA cases taken under the CWA
In order to limit your case search to cases related to Clean Water Act compliance, scroll to the "Case Attributes" section of the ICIS Enforcement Data (EPA Cases) Search, and select "CWA - Clean Water Act" from the "Primary Law" drop down menu.