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In June 2001, data for a subset of major federal facilities in
the United States were added to SFIP. These facilities belong
to a variety of federal agencies including:
- the Department of Defense (DOD),
- the Department of Energy (DOE),
- the Department of Transportation (DOT),
- the Department of the Interior (DOI),
- the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA),
- the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA),
- the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
- and the National Aeronautical and Space Administration
(NASA).
This expansion of SFIP will encourage greater accountability
on the part of federal facilities, and will allow the public
to obtain important environmental information about federal
facilities located in their communities.
With the exception of production capacity, SFIP provides
the same environmental data for the federal facilities as
for the five industry sectors already included in SFIP.
This information includes the number of inspections, compliance
with federal regulations, enforcement actions taken, chemical
releases, and spills. SFIP also includes demographic information
for each federal facility location. Production capacity is
not provided for federal facilities because of the diversity
of their operations.
Criteria for Including Federal Facilities in SFIP
In order to be included in SFIP, federal facilities must
be classified as a "major" facility under at least
two of the following three statutes: the Clean Air Act (CAA),
the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA). The term "federal facilities"
is used to refer to this subset throughout the SFIP website.
BRAC Facilities
Under the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC), there
have been four successive BRAC Commissions that recommended
the closure of over 350 Department of Defense (DOD) facilities,
and the realignment in operations and functions of over 100
others. SFIP excludes all BRAC facilities closed or scheduled
to close before December 2001.
Co-location
Co-location, the presence of multiple operations (possibly
with different organizations or agencies in charge of each)
on the same parcel of land, is especially common for federal
facilities. On one piece of property, there may be military
installations from various DOD branches, contractors, and
other federal agencies. For example:
- An Army Command may be located on a Naval Air Station's
property, or
- Several contractors may be located on a DOE facility's
property.
To provide a complete picture of environmental performance
at each location, SFIP presents data on every permit
at a federal facility.
Accuracy of Federal Facility Data
Prior to the public release of SFIP’s federal facility
data, EPA initiated an extensive data quality review.
Each EPA region, with assistance from the States, reviewed
the data for facilities in their region. In addition, each
facility received a copy of its compliance and enforcement
data to review and verify before the information was released
by EPA and added to SFIP. Facility comments were addressed
by SFIP staff or brought to the attention of regional/state
data stewards for resolution. Based upon these data reviews,
EPA believes that the information in the underlying databases
is generally of high quality. EPA will continue to work with
stakeholders to ensure the greatest possible quality of data
in SFIP.
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