Enforcement & Compliance History Online (ECHO)

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  • Number of Facilities Regulated
  • Percent of Facilities Reviewed for Violations
  • Percent of Facilities Reviewed with Violations
  • Percent of Facilities Reviewed with Serious Violations
  • Percent of Violating Facilities with Formal Enforcement
  • Percent of Serious Violators with Formal Enforcement
  • Total Number of Enforcement Actions
• Clean Water Act Non-Majors 2008 - Have comments, questions, or recommendations? Contact Us
  Number of Non-Major Facilities Regulated
  
  Explain This Map

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About the Annual Noncompliance Report

EPA and States regulate hundreds of thousands of facilities under the Clean Water Act, from small dispersed sites that have runoff during wet weather (such as construction sites or animal feedlots), to pipe discharges at factories or wastewater treatment plants that are required to stay below permitted pollutant levels. The available data for violations increases based on the size of facilities. EPA has extensive data about large municipal and industrial dischargers available on the ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online) Web site.

This interactive website focuses on annual statistics for the smaller direct discharge permit holders (primarily factories and smaller wastewater treatment plants). Each permittee measures its discharges (typically on a monthly basis), and submits data to the state (or directly to EPA if the state does not have program authorization, such as in MA, NH, AK, NM, ID, PR, DC and trust territories). Many states enter the measurements into EPA's national database, which will automatically calculate violations. Other states do not provide this level of information to EPA, but instead provide EPA with a summary view of what is happening. EPA compiles this information to show how many facilities were reviewed (pollutant measurements were calculated against limits to find violations), how many permittees had violations, and how many enforcement actions were taken to address violations.

This interactive map allows you to explore the data, and a Report is also available with complete findings and additional information. If you click on a state to examine facility data, pay particular attention to caveats about whether facility information is entered in EPA's databases, otherwise, you may draw false conclusions. For example, a state that does not enter discharge data EPA's database will have few, if any facilities showing up in violation. To get information about violations within that state, you will need to review state websites, or contact the state CWA program for information on obtaining that level of detail.