Recent Additions

August 2008
Clean Water Act Monthly Effluent Charts Enhanced! ECHO users now can customize the set of charts or data to be returned for ECHO Effluent Charts. To use the new feature, perform a Water Data Search, then click on a facility's Detailed Facility Report. Scroll down to the Three Year Compliance Status by Quarter-CWA/NPDES Compliance Status section and click on the "custom" link. The Custom Searches section of the Effluent Charts help file provides information on using the custom search form.

February 2008
Clean Water Act Monthly Effluent Charts Now Available on ECHO! New data on ECHO improves the usability of the Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge data. Previously ECHO showed summary quarterly effluent discharge measurement data in table format. ECHO now also offers users the ability to see monthly discharge measurements in a color-coded chart format. The charts are available for CWA major dischargers. Data for standard CWA non-major dischargers also are available at about 50% of the permitted facilities in the country.¹ To learn about the format of the report, please visit the help page.

To get started with ECHO Effluent Charts, perform a "Water Data Search." The results of your search will include a link (an "E" icon in the Facility Information column) to the charts for each facility that has had one or more violations in the past three years. Effluent Charts also are available as a link from the ECHO Detailed Facility Reports.

The compliance status for CWA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) dischargers is normally determined by the electronic comparison of discharge monitoring reports (DMRs) submitted by facilities to permitted discharge limits. Both permit limits and discharge data must be present for the data system to generate an accurate compliance status. The ECHO Detailed Facility Report displays when a permit limit has been exceeded during a calendar quarter and allows you to jump to the corresponding effluent report.

If you have comments on the overall design or functionality of the charts, please feel free to use the Contact Us feedback form.

¹ Because it is not required, not all states use EPA's databases to enter and automatically track CWA NPDES violations at non-major facilities. However, many states enter that data voluntarily. EPA's calendar year 2006 non-major limit and DMR chart (PDF, 27KB) can help site users determine the percent of non-majors with compliance information available in ECHO.

September 2007
New ECHO enhancements available! More than four million searches have been performed on the Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) Web site since its release in November 2002. This first major site upgrade since November 2004 brings in more data, offers exciting new search options, and fulfills popular user requests.

• ECHO is expanding from three to five years of compliance monitoring and enforcement data. Searches can now be performed for five years of inspection and enforcement action data, and reports display five years of this information.



• ECHO can be used to access Clean Water Act data from EPA’s modernized database (ICIS-NPDES, which stands for Integrated Compliance Information System - National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System). Twenty-one states, two tribes and nine territories are using ICIS-NPDES. The remaining states have not yet begun populating the modernized system, but they continue to enter data into the Permit Compliance System (PCS). Because the database of record differs by state, ECHO provides separate search interfaces for PCS states and ICIS-NPDES states. To view data from a particular state, users should choose the appropriate interface (the lists of states/territories/tribes using each system are displayed on the site). For national or EPA Regional Clean Water Act searches, users will need to do two separate searches - one with each interface. Alternatively, users may use the All Data Search (searches air, water, and waste data) as a way to view both ICIS-NPDES and PCS data in one query.



• ECHO data has been combined with Google’s mapping functionality to provide facility location and compliance data along with zooming capabilities and satellite photographic images. Multiple facilities are color-coded based on compliance status, and can be mapped from the Air, Water, Hazardous Waste, and All Data search result pages. Specific facilities still can be mapped from the Detailed Facility Report.



• Search page enhancements include:
  
  
  • All ICIS-NPDES facility types are now available for search in ECHO (see NPDES permit type and component menus).
  
  
  
  • When available, users can search on and reports will display a facility-level compliance status for non-major facilities in ICIS-NPDES. Similar functionality will be added for PCS states soon.
  
  
  
  • Search by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code on the Air and ICIS-NPDES Data Searches.
  
  
  
  • Search for pollutant currently in violation or for facilities in a non-attainment area on the Air Data Search.
  
  
  
  • Multiple states can be searched by using the "ctrl" key to select states of interest.



• The options for search results have been expanded:
  
  
  • For users who need to analyze data for a large number of facilities, this feature provides comma-delimited text for download and use in spreadsheet and other programs for searches that return between 1,001 and 10,000 facilities.
  
  
  
  • A new Custom Output search option allows users to customize the columns that are displayed on the search results screen.

June 2007
New search option added to ECHO. U.S. EPA’s Facility Registry System, which links EPA records common to a facility, includes a flag identifying facilities in the U.S. and within 100 kilometers of the U.S.-Mexico border. At present, border facilities are flagged based on the latitude and longitude retained in EPA’s Locational Reference Tables.

May 2007
ECHO has moved to a new web address. The address change was required due to our move to a new server location. ECHO resided at a temporary web address during April and May ( http://63.160.3.204/echo/). This temporary address will not be available after May 25 and will not redirect users to the new web location. We apologize for this inconvenience. If you had bookmarked the temporary address, please be sure to update your bookmarks to the new address:
http://www.epa-echo.gov/echo

(Bookmarking this page in Mozilla Firefox or adding to Internet Explorer favorites will create a new bookmark; using the Organize Bookmarks option in Firefox or the Organize Favorites option in Internet Explorer will allow you to delete the old bookmark). The longstanding web address (http://www.epa.gov/echo) will continue to work - ECHO users will be automatically redirected from the old web address to the new web location.

January 2007
Non-compliance data for NPDES non-major facilities. EPA released data on non-compliance at National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) non-major facilities on January 16, 2007. The report is posted on the ECHO About the Data page.

December 2006
New search options added to ECHO. The performance stack test information that was added last month is now searchable. Users can search for facilities based on whether a stack test passed or failed, when a test was conducted, and more. In addition, the August data update included information from the upgraded RCRAInfo system, the national program database for Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) data. RCRAInfo Version 3 includes a new site activity status flag, which for the first time allows all RCRA Subtitle C facilities to be designated as active or inactive. This flag has been incorporated on the ECHO Web site. The All Data Search restricts searches to active facilities in all three major programs (air, water, and hazardous waste). The default Hazardous Waste Search restricts searches to active facilities, but a Facility Status check box allows the user to include inactive facilities in searches. Each RCRA facility's activity status also will be displayed on the Detailed Facility Report.

November 2006
New information added to ECHO. Basic information about the results of Clean Air Act stationary source performance stack tests (pass/fail - with pollutant tested, if reported) and Title V compliance certification reviews (results of "in compliance", "in violation" or "unknown" - plus deviations with yes/no, if reported) has been added to the Inspection History section of the ECHO Detailed Facility Report. Details are available in the ECHO Data Dictionary.

April 2006
NAICS Search added to the ECHO Hazardous Waste Search. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) has replaced the U.S. Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. The NAICS search option allows ECHO users to query Hazardous Waste Data by NAICS code.

March 2006
ECHO Named Top Government Innovation. ECHO is one of three EPA programs that have been named semifinalists for the Innovations in American Government Award. EPA's Enforcement and Compliance History Online Web site, the National Environmental Performance Track program, and the eRulemaking program were among 50 programs selected by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
EPA Press Release
Press Release from The Council for Excellence in Government

February 2006
New Features Added to ECHO. EPA is announcing several new features that enhance the usability of the ECHO site. On the Water Data Search, EPA has added the ability to search for water facilities based on the number of combined sewer system outfalls. A combined sewer system is a wastewater collection system owned by a municipality that conveys sanitary wastewater (domestic, commercial, and industrial) and stormwater through a single pipe system to a publicly owned treatment works. Detailed information regarding combined sewer systems is available at http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=5. Two enhancements have been made to the search results page. After running a Water Data Search, the results page now displays the type of significant noncompliance (SNC) status, indicated by a single character, when a facility is designated as being in current SNC status (the site formerly displayed "yes" in this situation; the characters are explained on the Results Help page). Finally, after running an air, water, or hazardous waste search, the results screen displays an additional column with each facility's program system identification number.

December 2004
EPA has added the expanded version of the Detailed Facility Report, which includes information about Notices of Violation (NOVs). NOVs often are issued by EPA and/or the states as the first step in the enforcement process after an alleged violation is found or self-reported.

November 2004
New ECHO Enhancements available! More than 11,000 ECHO users provided input about the site during its 2002-2003 public comment period, and EPA is announcing several new features that enhance the site and address common user requests. A frequent comment was that two years of data did not provide enough historical information. ECHO has been expanded to include three years of data. Searches can be performed for three years of inspection, compliance, and enforcement data, and reports display three years of information.

Other enhancements now available:

• Search results screens provide data values instead of yes/no answers, so users can see how many inspections, quarters of noncompliance, and enforcement actions occurred in the past three years.
• Users may search for facilities with Notices of Violation (NOVs) (NOVs often are issued by EPA and/or the states as the first step in the enforcement process after an alleged violation is found or self-reported).
• The All Data Search allows for custom analysis of five industry sectors (Sector Facility Indexing Project (SFIP) Universe Search).
• Users can search for Performance Track facilities (see http://www.epa.gov/performancetrack/ for information on this program).

Finally, EPA added additional contextual information in several places to better describe the data that is available on ECHO. Questions/comments on these enhancements may be submitted directly from the ECHO Web site (http://www.epa-echo.gov/echo/comments.html), or emails may be sent to echo@epa.gov.

October 2004
EPA is continuing to experience delays in its error notification routing process, due to the transition between contractors who work on the EPA/ECHO error correction process. Users who submit error notifications from ECHO but do not receive a confirmation email from Error Tracker may notify Rebecca Kane (kane.rebecca@epa.gov). The ECHO team apologizes for the problems and thanks you for your patience.

August 2004
EPA underwent a transition between contractors who work on the EPA/ECHO error correction process.. During the transition, which began July 1, 2004, error notification routing experienced some problems. Routing of error notifications that were submitted from July 1 to July 25 has been delayed. The error correction system is functioning as of July 26, 2004. Users who submit error notifications from ECHO but do not receive a confirmation email from Error Tracker may notify Rebecca Kane (kane.rebecca@epa.gov). The ECHO team apologizes for the problems and thanks you for your patience.

March 2004
New Search Tools Added to ECHO. EPA has added two new search interfaces to ECHO. These new features allow users to more easily search for federal enforcement case information from the Integrated Compliance Information System (ICIS). ICIS tracks formal civil administrative and judicial enforcement actions taken by the U.S. EPA. This change does not add new data to ECHO, because ICIS case reports were previously available from the site. However, the enhanced site provides powerful tools that allow users to develop custom searches on EPA enforcement cases. The EPA Enforcement Cases Search page allows users to search for any EPA enforcement case concluded after Sept. 30, 2000. Searches can be performed based on a variety of criteria, including facility name, penalty amount, geographic location, and statute violated. The Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEP) Search demonstrates EPA’s commitment to provide the public and regulated community with easy access to federal enforcement actions with SEPs. A SEP is part of an enforcement settlement in which a defendant/respondent voluntarily agrees to undertake an environmentally beneficial project. This new search page allows users to learn more about such projects, which are often community-based and improve or protect public health and the environment. The tool searches federal cases with SEPs that were concluded after Sept. 30, 2000.

February 2004
ECHO Integrated With Environmental Justice Geographic Assessment Tool. The ECHO Detailed Facility Report (DFR) has been augmented to link directly to the EJ Geographic Assessment Tool. The link is shown in the "Demographic Profile" section of the DFR. In addition to allowing users to specify the radius around the facility, new tabbed reports are available showing social, environmental, economic, and health data. Additionally, the DFR has been updated to add education, income, and poverty data from the 2000 Census.

Performance Track Facilities Noted on ECHO Detailed Facility Report (DFR). EPA has completed the integration of Performance Track data so users can see what facilities are recognized as participants in this voluntary program. The data appears on the ECHO DFRs in the "Facility Characteristics" section (first row and third column - under Facility Status). If the facility is not in Performance Track, the box will be blank. ECHO does not yet allow searching for Performance Track on the search forms, but this addition will be made soon. Information on the Performance Track Program is available at http://www.epa.gov/performancetrack/.

November 2003
ECHO adds a Direct Link to NPDES Permit Documents. The ECHO Detailed Facility Reports now provides a link to NPDES final permit and fact sheet documents. The links are only displayed for facilities with documents available. The Office of Water is creating pdf versions of NPDES permit documents and fact sheets as permits are reissued. Within four to five years the permit documents for all majors dischargers will be available. As of November 2003, permits and/or fact sheets were available currently for over 800 dischargers. The link appears directly after the "Facility Characteristics" section of the Detailed Facility Report.

An EPA press release recognized ECHO's first anniversary and one-millionth search request.

August 19, 2003
EPA removed the "pilot" label from ECHO and released it as final. The detailed Public Comment Period Summary and Response to Comments was posted on the site on the "ECHO History" page (formerly called "Information Room"). Several minor changes have been made to the site in order to improve its usability. Some enhancements to the site in response to public comments are shown in the table below, while possible future enhancements are discussed in the Response to Comments document.

April 1, 2003
EPA made several minor changes to the "Clean Water Act Two Year Compliance Status" section of the Detailed Facility Report. Associated data dictionary changes were also made. These changes were the result of several comments received indicating possible mis-interpretation of the Clean Water Act violation data. The Detailed Facility Report adds a line called "Non-compliance in Quarter" which indicates whether any violation (effluent, reporting, single incident/event etc.) occurred within each quarterly period. The results of each column (yes or no) are the basis for the overall "Quarters in Non-compliance (NC)" calculation shown in prior section of the report. For example, four quarters with a "yes" would translate to four quarters in non-compliance. The Detailed Facility Report continues to report on the significant non-compliance/reportable non-compliance quarterly determination (known as the quarterly non-compliance report or QNCR). This is an official determination made each quarter regarding the severity of violations. Regulation requires EPA to publish this information. It is possible that the quarterly non-compliance status is "blank" (meaning the facility is not in significant non-compliance or reportable non-compliance), however, other violations could be shown in the more detailed effluent violations table that appears in the following section of the report. In the previous version of the ECHO Detailed Facility Report, EPA denoted a "C" for compliance if the field was blank. This has been corrected, and the report now shows a "blank". This is consistent with the way that the Permit Compliance System handles the data. A blank means that there are no significant or reportable non-compliance events, but it does not mean that no violations occurred in the quarter.

March 31, 2003
The official comment period concluded.

November 20, 2002
The pilot site of the ECHO tool was released to the public. The official comment period commenced.