"I support the EPA's ECHO website. I believe it is a positive step towards building a good faith relationship between the EPA and concerned citizens."
- Unaffiliated user

"This resource is a tremendous opportunity for students and citizens to become more aware of the things in their neighborhood that are potentially dangerous. All people need to realize the risks inherent in our current way of being. I strongly encourage you to make this site a permenant addition to your web presence."
- Unaffiliated user

"Please continue to have the informaton on the ECHO website available. It is important that citizens have the opportunity to view the information that the website contains. I have just found this website and would be dismayed to lose it. Thank You."
- Unaffiliated user

"I understand that you are taking a survey to see if people want data available at all times on clean water and other efforts. Please add me to the list of citizens who feel that all EPA data should be availabe to all interested parties"
- Unaffiliated user

"I think that this is a great idea and so far I have been able to move around the site w/o much trouble. I hope that this pilot is continued and updated. My tax dollars are going towards something that I find very useful. Yippy !! Thanks."
- Commercial user

"I have heard that your office is currently taking public comments on whether the data provided through this website should remain available. I can quickly understand that facility operators or permit holders may be opposed to having data on their facilities available in this way. However, the public has a right to know if industrial plants or other facilities near them are good corporate citizens or are breaking laws designed to protect the environment--and most importantly -- their health. The public is the best 'watch dog' that the EPA can have, and knowing that people are paying attention, is a good incentive for corporations to abide by the law. Therefore, I urge you to continue operating this website. It is in the best interest of the public and the nation as a whole. Thank you"
- Unaffiliated user

"One of americas largest open pit mines exist in the [xxx]. This mine is only found if searching [xxx], the mailing address of the mine and a very small and obscure section of the [xxx] area. I believe that having only the mailing address of these facilities is a huge limitation to the system. In this case specifically, the mine is know as the [xxx], but would not be found by anyone not intimately familiar with the area. Is is possible to include surrounding areas? Qwestdex online yellow pages manages to do it. Secondly, I found the violations page confusing. So there were violations, then what? hitting the up and down arrows had no effect that I could see and I could not find any details regarding the violations fines or actions. I do support this page and hope it becomes more useful. thanks for your efforts."
- Unaffiliated user

"What a useful site you have constructed!Thank you so much for giving citizen access to some of the information resulting from tax dollars spent supporting your compliance agencies. One glitch I've encountered. When modifying a search, the Search screen fails to remember what area I'm searching. When I try to reenter, under geographic location, (CA, for example), the county list doesn't work. I have to go back one screen and reinitiate the search. Keep up the good work and thanks again"
"I am thinking of buying a retirement property out here in the [xxx] and the air and water quality information is very helpful - since I like to be near moving water and clean air is, of course, a necessity for good health. And, naturally, it would not be nice to unknowingly buy a property next door to a major polluter, or even a minor air polluter, since I have asthma. This is really a great site, I can imagine using it in many ways in the future. I have forwarded the link to many friends. My scientist friends in various fields of research like it too."
- Unaffiliated user

"I find the ECHO search tool very helpful. This fills a gap in available on-line facility compliance information. My suggestions for improvement are as follows:
- Improve links from ECHO to and from USEPA's Envirofacts Website. A user should be able to use either Envirofacts or ECHO, and easily link back and forth to specific facility information from one Website to the other. My suggestion is to link off of facility name. I noticed that some permit ID's are already linked, although there is room for improvement.
- Under the Inspection History heading, electronic copies of the actual inspection reports should be available. I'm not sure if these already exist in electronic form, but in the future they could be scanned or input into electronic form by the field inspectors and uploaded to the website. This would reduce the need for additional inquiry via FOIA file review requests and/or attempts to contact the inspectors by telephone."
- Commercial user

"Thank you for making this information available."
- Commercial user

"I support the site, but am confused by why so few companies in my area are listed. Unless this information is voluntary, there seems to be lots of place in NON-compliance."
- Unaffiliated user

"The public availability of this data is important and the ECHO site provides an excellent mechanism for distributing this data. I congratualte the EPA on making this data available on the internet. I encourage the EPA to add as much data as possible to the site. I was able to easily lookup my neighborhood and city and find the compliance data for the area. I found the site easy to use and it presented the data in a format that was sufficient to satisfy my curiosity. I did not do any in-depth use of the data."
- Unaffiliated user

"I have just visited the ECHO website and found it to be very easy to use and understand. I strongly believe that this type of information should be accessible to the public. As a mother of two young children, environmental safety is of great concern to me, and having access to information on the safety of my own town and surrounding areas is of the utmost importance. I applaud this effort at improving the transparency of the compliance process, and would urge you to continue to make this information available to the public."
- Unaffiliated user

"...Water quality protection is one of our top priorities. While nonpoint sources are the major source of pollution problems in [xxx], point source wastewater discharges are still a significant problem. While [xxx] has basically good water quality standards, proper implementation procedures have never been developed, and enforcement of NPDES violations is very lax. We have used Envirofacts extensively in the past and more recently we have used the ECHO web site to help identify permits that are causing water quality problems and access to the data in these databases has been essential to our efforts to improve water quality protections and enforcement. Please maintain and expand ECHO and Envirofacts. ALL NPDES permit data should be entered into these data bases so that citizens can properly track the performance of the permitted facilites and the agencies responsible for enforcing Clean Water Act laws."
- Public interest group user

"As an individual passionate about being informed, I'm truly impressed with your effort to get the information out. Please keep up the good work, and I urge you to make this a permanent site. I'm encouraged!"
- Unaffiliated user

"Good site. Please continue to make this information publicly available."
- Unaffiliated user

"Please leave ALL the data on emissions, etc. So the public may be aware of what is being dumped into the air and water."
- Unaffiliated user

"Thank you for making sure this information is available to the public. It is essential in our democracy that we all have access to this information always! I hope that this 'pilot site' can become a permanent site."
- Unaffiliated user

"Please do not remove this site! It is a wonderful resource for citizens who are concerned about local industries. This website is a great resource and can do much to increase awareness about the state of the environment in the areas where we live. Again, please do not remove it!"
- Unaffiliated user

"I think the EPA ECHO system, which makes information available to the public ONLINE, is a wonderful and useful service. Educating our population about the "system" and various levels of compliance by organizations can only benefit our society in the long run. We need to build/maintain trust between the EPA and citizens and this is a wonderful way to continue building on that foundation. Therefore, I want to give my support for the EPA to continue making the information available to the public online. I also hope that the EPA builds on the current ECHO system and expands it to include more indepth information. Thank you for you time."
- Unaffiliated user

"I am a [xxx] who is very concerned about our environment. I don't think I can add critical commentary about the site but I can assure you that it contains the kind of information that citizens need access to to become informed about what is happening to our environment. The project is critically important as a central source of information. I [xxx] and need to be informed on the issues. Thank you for your efforts."
- Unaffiliated user

"The ECHO presentation of violation data for individual sites is too difficult to understand. Apparently, when a given violation is returned to compliance, the RTC date is presented, but it looks to the reader as if a second violation has been recorded for that date. A clear description of what's being presented regarding the violations at a facility needs to be incorporated into the ECHO facility report."
- Regional government user

"...The information is great but needs to be easier to find. Thanks for all the hard work on this."
"I just read through frequently asked questions and found that I needed to check the search minor sites to get a search for the site that I just wrote the previous comment for. After checking the box, I was able to find the site. However, I think it should be more clear to do that. Some message noted on the page with the error that it couldn't be found would be helpful."
- Commercial user

"Please keep facility performance records on-line. It is valuable for the public to have this information as to hold these companies accountable for following the law. This ensures our safety and yours. Thank you."
- Unaffiliated user

"I love the site and all the info it provides. Thank You all...Thank You again for everything. You have done one heck of a job!!!! Keep up the good work."
- Commercial user

"Please keep this site open and available to all. This data should be open to the citizens who pay the taxes that fund your work. The people who would rather not have the site available have vested interests in keeping this information from the public. It would be a great dis-service to make this data unavailable."
- Unaffiliated user

"This is a wonderful site. It is very user friendly. Information is easily retrieved because of the logic of the format. Thanks for this!"
- Public interest group user

"This is a student's dream come true for research on local issues. Most helpful!"
- Academic user

"This looks to be an excellent resource and is a good example of how the web can be used to simplify regulation and make regulatory programs less burdensome. One suggestion, add a section of 'sample reports' so people can quickly see what kind of information is available. Otherwise, it's a bit unclear what info can be gotten. Secondly I you need an option to download the raw data for those who are cross-referencing different data sets and can't simply use the web search tools."
- Public interest group user

"The ECHO site is an excellent step toward delivering important information. There are a lot of useful search choices and depth of coverage. However, it would be more beneficial if the search results gave drill-down access to actual figures (not just compliance status). From this site there's no way to tell how much non-compliance is going on - a little bit seems to be presented just the same as massive non-compliance. Also, in the help section it would be useful to offer more basic explanations of CWA and CAA. Remember that all visitors to this site won't be intimately versed in environmental compliance law and terminology. Thank you."
- Unaffiliated user

"The ECHO project is a good way to inform the public of any potential hazzards from pollution in their area. The site is easy to use and very comprehensive. I hope the EPA continues to keep this data current and push an all out effort to inform the public of this site."
- Public interest group user

"It is the right of the people to have this information available. Industries should be accountable for their actions. Thank you."
- Public interest group user

"...While non-point sources are causing the most damage to our surface waters, regulated point sources are still contributing greatly. While [xxx] has good water quality standards (on paper), proper implementation procedures have never been developed, and enforcement of NPDES violations is very lax. We are currently fighting three extremely bad permits that have been issued to facilites with very bad track records. We have used Envirofacts extensively, and more recently, ECHO. Please maintain and expand ECHO and Envirofacts. ALL NPDES permit data should be entered into these data bases so that citizens can properly track the performance ( should I say non-performance) of the permitted facilites and the government agencies that are tasked with enforcing Clean Water Act laws. If we don't do it, it won't get done. The ! minimum support we need from federal EPA is the maintenace and accessibility of database search engines like ECHO and Envirofacts. Thank you."
- Public interest group user

"Thank you for this website! As a person who is trying to become more aware of and actually do something other than just complain about enviromental issues, I believe this is a valuable resource. Please keep this information online and easily available."
- Unaffiliated user

"This is a very usefull site in researching sites. Please keep open"
- Regulated entity 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. We 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 ìCompliance Summary Data,î 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 ìData Dictionaryî 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 ñ 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 ìminor dischargerî violations added to the system. This is a significant whole because 90 percent of all dischargers as so-called ìminor.î 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 ñ 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."
- Unaffiliated user

"Please keep this service available to the general public! Open/public information disclosure is vital to the democratic process. Citizens have the right to information collected through the use of their tax dollars, within the limits of the Clean Air Act as passed by Congress."
- Public interest group user

"I am concerned about data being entered now and in the future. What kind of assurances is there that the data entered will be accurate. What kind of recourse will be avaiable when incorrect data is used against us. How often should the data be checked for accuracy? I think ideally that this forum has some good merit, but in the real world it has the potential to be disastrous and and creat more harm than good."
- Regulated entity user

"I like the intent of the web page and it's ease of use. However, I'm somewhat concerned about the quality of data being represented to the general public. PCS (NPDES database) has a history of harboring "bad" data...mostly due to reporting errors associated with new complex permits. Increase the confidence in the data and I think you'll have a great public awareness tool."
- Unaffiliated user

"Thank you for making 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. I encourage the EPA to expand its the current ECHO site to be more inclusive of all pollutant release data."
- Unaffiliated user

"THank you very much for creating a searchable database of past and current water polluters. Please know that the public will employ this database as a tool for increased dialogue and partnership with their community's polluting facilities. The result of increased public knowledge will be better environmental quality and a reduced regulatory burden on the EPA as other groups get involved in working with facilities to minimize water pollution. Thank you for posting the database and please keep it updated and available!"
- Academic user

Phoned comments

"...It would be helpful if you could search for only minor facilities. It is a limitation that you cannot retrieve more than 500 records. Searching in [xxx], you get 148 major water facilities. If you include minors, you get 2,951. If you only include facilities in compliance, you get 1566, which you still cannot view. Then I choose another option, and only 42 facilities show up. You should be able to see the first 500, then the next..I am very impressed with the site.."
- Commercial user

"It's a great site- very helpful. Initially, found it a bit confusing to figure out the Error Reporting section- probably because of breezing through the explanation section. This is a great way for people to evaluate how others look at them. This will also cut down actual visits to a site in order to collect data- as one will be able to find the same data via ECHO."
- Regulated entity user