ECHO Comments Archive

"In reviewing the data on the ECHO website for several of our client manufacturing companies, I am surprised by the large number of "non-compliance" situations and/or violations for which I personnally have knowledge to the contrary. Interestingly, it appears this may reflect an issue with the quality of data EPA receives from the states, yet EPA is putting the burden on the manufacturing company to identify and report these errors. The accountability for accurately provide compliance information should rest solely with the state (or federal) regulator. In the event the regulator believes the company is out of compliance, then this should be brought to the attention of the company either before the information is forwarded to EPA or at the same time so that there is some type of check or verification of non-compliance before the report is made public. While I think the database is a good idea, there needs to be quite a bit of work done to ensure incorrect information about a company's compliance status is not displayed, period (and the company should not be the ones required to constantly check the system to ensure the data is correct)."
- Commercial user

"Great site! Keep it up, updated and running. This is government at its finest, giving citizen's the information they need to be constructively engaged in their communities. Thank you for this site."
- Unaffiliated user

"ECHO is an excellent site.  Some suggestions:

-Make the system so good that states will want to use it themselves as a primary source of looking up information they need to do their jobs.  In other words, add features specifically for state use (create focus groups from state environmental agencies to see what they want/need).
-Allow states to enter more state-specific information into the system.  For instance, small Clean Air Act (CAA) facilities are not required to be entered into EPA's database, but may be regulated by the states.  While it's not strictly the EPAs mandate to manage state-specific these data, design the system to allow states to electively include these state data where possible.
-Hold state agencies accountable.  Please don't underestimate the environmental benefit that this tool can provide if it's used as a state environmental agency performance indicator.  Rate the states on accuracy of the data they submit, number of corrections received by industry and the public, timeliness of corrections, etc., and make that information publicly available.
-Keep the entire system completely publicly available.  It would disappoint me greatly to see restrictions placed on any part of the system.

I strongly support the increase the compliance status/violations timeframe from 2 years to 5 years.  Thanks again for an excellent site!"
- Unaffiliated user

"I think your site is great.
I would like to see if they would put down the pounds per day for PCS discharges along with the other liquid measurements. I think this would help in the NPDES permitting process if a stream is having so many pounds per day that it can not possible handle in discharges it might bring awareness that new discharges need to be addressed/modified in these area's. I think it would be a great help."
- Unaffiliated user

"...I took a quick tour of ECHO, entering a search for my area (zip [xxx]). One facility was listed as having violations in the last two years— [xxx]. I clicked on that name and was presented with a rather bewildering set of tables. The "Two Year Compliance Status by Quarter" table seemed to be the place to look for further detail. It listed the facility as "in viol" for every quarter, but there was no information beyond that and nowhere to click to get more info on the nature of the violations. (The Data Dictionary button only yields generic explanations of the data fields.) A similar search on zip [xxx] said that [xxx], also had violations within the last two years. Again, the page I got when I clicked on [xxx] provided no additional info and nowhere to click for more detail. The ideal approach would be to be able to click on any instance of "In viol" to see what the violation was. As an [xxx], I realize that there is a limit to how much information you can cram into a single web page or data table, and I realize that your disparate data sources may not easily allow presentation of information in layman's terms. But the information that's available on the Detailed Facility Report—at least for my two tests—is not very useful. Perhaps ECHO is already useful for watchdog groups and other environmental professionals, but it has a way to go before the general public will benefit from it."
- Unaffiliated user

"I recently read an article on providing more information via the internet. Very briefly here are my comments: 1) Such a database, system adds costs to the Government; in a time when we should be looking at minimizing these costs. 2) I believe in the freedom of information act, but what is wrong with getting the information the old fashion way, a phone call, written request, etc. 3) We don't how this information could be used; and we should monitor who gets it. 4) If they want it, they should make a personal request, and pay for it. Lets face it the companies that are providing this information have paid for it several ways. 5) Accuracy of the information is questionable/ misleading; bad information in the wrong hands is not good."
- Unaffiliated user

"I read though all the positive comments. Are you guys nuts? Have we already fogotten about 9/11? There is enough information available for any terrorist domestic or foreign to select a target. This site gives them a map to the facility,tells them the type of industry it is (SIC code)and from there they can figure out where to find the methy ethyl death. Finally, with the demographics (in 1 to 3 mile radius)added it provides a quick estimate for the body count. Most of the information the citizens want is public and already available. Do we really want to make it that easy for a terrorist to select their next target? Thank you for accepting on line comments."
- Regulated entity user

"ECHO is a most helpful tool. We are currently trying to obtain information regarding pipeline hzardous liquid release information. If mandatory reports were made public, it would save a lot of people from further damage to their health."
- Unaffiliated user

"This is a great resource. Please keep it up and running."
- Public interest group user

"I found the site useful and easy to use both for [xxx] and for my job as [xxx] with a regional governmental agency, [xxx]. I hope this site becomes a permanent addition to the tools available to ensure that our waters are safe for swimming and fishing."
- Regional government user

"Thank you for making this critical data about facility performance available to the public on-line. Public access to this information will benefit both the regulated community as well as the public. Facilities that regularly comply with the law will have their records opened for all to see and their good track records can be lauded, while facilities that are often in violation of the law will be forced to explain their actions to the communities they harm the most, and thus will likely be more accountable. I commend EPA for beginning the work to make this information available to the public. Features of the site that are particularly useful:
-Listing whether the facility is in noncompliance in the current quarter, as well as the number of quarters the facility has been in noncompliance over the previous eight quarters, as is done in the "Compliance Summary Data," is helpful and useful.
-Information on the CWA/NPDES Compliance Status, detailing if facilities were in noncompliance or Significant Noncompliance, at which discharge point, and in which quarter, is all necessary information to report.
-The environmental conditions of the receiving waters is critical information, and valuable.
-The site is relatively easy to navigate. Having links to the "Data Dictionary" by each section of the water facility reports is helpful, it is easy to search by facility number or name, as well as many other parameters.
Areas where the site could be improved:
-The site should be searchable country-wide. The limitation on the number of results that can come from a single search is an unfortunate constraint to the site.
-The Permit Compliance System currently includes information on stormwater, general, pretreatment and CAFO permits, but this information is not yet available on ECHO. There is no reason why this information should be excluded. It can be very important to the public.
-ECHO should include TRI data within its reports, rather than by linking to EnviroFacts.
-ECHO should include more pollutant release data such as: air emission inventory, hazardous waste generation (from Biennial Reporting System) and overall permitted loadings for each Clean Water Act chemical.
-ECHO should include Notices of Violation taken by EPA or states.
-ECHO should allow searching for spills reported to the emergency response notification system (ERNS).
-Significant amounts of data are missing from the certain states - for example California. If states do not report information on every major facility in their state, the data is compromised, and that appears to be the case for California. The web site should make it very clear that EPA and California have failed to report data on all major facilities, and indicate and name the number of major facilities for which there is no data. EPA and the states should be taking active steps to ensure that all data for major facilities in the state are reported.
-EPA should work with states to get Clean Water Act "minor discharger" violations added to the system. This is a significant whole because 90 percent of all dischargers as so-called "minor." When a search is conducted for major and minor facilities, the resulting table should clearly indicate which facilities are major and which are minor, which is not the case currently.
-Information about when facilities were inspected, by whom, and details about the type of inspection and enforcement action taken are needed for users to understand the extent of oversight.
-More detail needs to be provided on the type of inspection performed so that citizens know how thorough an inspection was - for example, who performed the inspection and was it a random, unannounced inspection? Did it last several days or several hours? How much effluent was sampled, and for what? What was learned from the inspection? None of these and many other similar, important questions can be answered from ECHO currently.
Instead of merely providing percentages for violations, citizens should have access to the underlying data, so that one can determine the quantities discharged.
-Data should be available for as many years as EPA has it. There is no reason that data should be provided only for the past two years. Also even if ECHO does not show all historic violations, at least it should show all enforcement actions.
-Users should have the option to have data queries either printed to the screen, as is currently the case, or to a spreadsheet, such as Excel or Access.
-Information about the demographic profile of the surrounding area is very useful and helpful. There should be more search parameters for demographics, not just minority percentages."
- Two unaffiliated users

"Suggestions: 1. Since some zip codes yield no information, it would be nice to be able to enter a town, city, or county or even search on a state-wide level. 2. I, together with [xxx], tried out your ECHO site. Once we did locate facilities, it was not immediately obvious whether they were discharging to land, water or air. We did eventually see where this was written into a chart but I'd say make it more noticable. 3. Also, once we found a facility, we were not able to get information about WHAT they were discharging, for what they were in violation, when, how much, how long. It was disappointing and frustrating."
"Okay, I 've spent more time playing with ECHO and I have new questions. I still agree with my last comment regardingthe detailed data form - a community person would have to understand the abbreviations CWA, CAA, and RCRA to understand whether the violation was to water, air, or land and I still think this should be more obvious. I have now, however, discovered the advanced search options and realize I can search via county or state. ... I also still agree with my last comments regarding specifics about the violations. I'd like to clearly see for what the company was in violation."
- Unaffiliated user

"First let me say that this ECHO web site is great! Good job..."
- Regulated entity user

"A very good start, indeed. I am still on the learning curve, but I expect this site to be very heavily used. I hope that EPA will continue to supprt it and improve it over time."
- Unaffiliated user

"I like the site and commend you on providing this information to consumers and area residents."
- Unaffiliated user

"The ECHO site's facility data compliance information is wrought with data errors. The data for [xxx] has many violations listed that never occurred. Additionally, data for other [xxx] companies are reported erroneously according to our shared resourses. Further, the state of Indiana has historically had serious data management problems as I'm sure many states have. It is not prudent or equitable to publish erroneous information for public use, therefore, [xxx] believes the site should be deleted in its entirety until such time that all quality assurance and corrections are made to every state and federal compliance information database, collectively."
- Regulated entity user