The statute mandates minimum inspection frequencies for Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities - annually for government-owned or-operated TSDFs, and biennially for non-government TSDFs. EPA has established minimum annual inspection requirements for Large Quantity Generators - at least 20 percent of the universe. States may have approved plans for flexibility from the Large Quantity Generator requirement. Please see ECHO's Compliance Monitoring Requirements page for more information.

For program management purposes, most EPA regions and states use the Large Quantity Generator universe identified through the Biennial Report. Some regions and states use other sources of information such as a state's e-manifest data. Few use the active LQG universe in RCRAInfo, as it's difficult to maintain on a regular basis.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), which amended the Solid Waste Disposal Act, was the first substantial effort by Congress to establish a regulatory structure for the management of solid and hazardous wastes.

ECHO data focuses on hazardous waste facilities, which are regulated under Subtitle C of RCRA, and the corresponding information about environmental agency inspections, violations of regulatory requirements identified, and enforcement at these facilities. Subtitle C of RCRA addresses "cradle-to-grave" requirements for hazardous waste from the point of generation to disposal.

This law, and its associated regulations, are intended to ensure proper management and disposal of hazardous waste. A significant component of the RCRA program is tracking, including hazardous waste manifests, facility record keeping, and biennial waste reports. EPA's hazardous waste web site offers more information.

Waste Subtitle C handlers tracked for compliance and enforcement purposes are:

• Hazardous waste Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDFs)
• Generators of hazardous waste (classified by size)
• Large Quantity Generator (LQG)
• Small Quantity Generator (SQG)
• Conditionally-Exempt Small Quantity Generator (CESQG)
• Other hazardous waste handlers, such as transporters of hazardous waste

EPA has established minimum data requirements requiring authorized states, territories, District of Columbia, and EPA regional offices to track and report handler universes and activities on all facilities, regardless of size. Some states do not require CESQGs to notify that they generate hazardous waste, so in some cases data relating to those generators may not be represented in EPA data systems. For more details on required data, see the summary of compliance and enforcement data entry requirements in ECHO.

Establishing a definitive regulated universe of facilities under the RCRA program is difficult and dependent on a number of factors. Because the quality of the universe information varies, it is not appropriate to compare one state's data with another without knowing the accuracy of the data and details of the compliance monitoring program in each state. Although these numbers represent the active universe in the national database, RCRAInfo, the states may have more current information. Links to state environmental agency web sites may be found in the Other Resources box below each state dashboard.

The data comes from EPA and authorized state and local environmental agencies, which report into the national data system, RCRAInfo. Data for the current fiscal year and the four previous fiscal years is presented, so that we are always showing a five-year trend. The fiscal year refers to the federal fiscal year, which is from October 1 to September 30. Beginning with fiscal year 2011, the dashboards present data that was captured from EPA's data systems and frozen so that it could not be changed (any state comments regarding frozen data are posted on ECHO). For years that we do not have frozen data, we use production data (data currently in the data system). Please note that production data is subject to change as EPA's data systems are updated. We plan to eventually use frozen data for the four previous fiscal years; the current year will always be production data.

Information from RCRAInfo is provided to the ECHO web site, which is updated monthly. Using the ECHO Hazardous Waste Search users can search for:

• facilities based on ZIP code, city, or other area of interest
• facility name
• industry sector (SIC/NAICS code)
• inspection/enforcement history
• compliance status (whether a facility has violations)

All search options selected are "anded", therefore all select criteria must be met for your data output. Search results can be mapped.

Resources are listed below.

• EPA Annual Accomplishments Report
• EPA Annual Results Statistics
• Access EPA Case and Press Release Search
• Search ECHO for data about EPA cases taken under RCRA

On the ECHO search, in order to limit your case search to cases related to RCRA, scroll to the "Case Attributes" section of the EPA Enforcement Cases Search, and select "RCRA - Resource Conservation & Recovery Act" from the "Primary Law" drop down menu.

In the event that the data retrievals available through ECHO do not meet your needs, detailed data sets from the primary enforcement and compliance history databases are available. Download data.

EPA also maintains the ECHO Exporter download. The ECHO Exporter draws from one of ECHO's most popular reports - providing summary information about each facility in a table format. Because ECHO has a limit on the number of facilities that can be shown in one query, some users were not able to get all the information they needed. The ECHO Exporter solves that problem - providing a download for more than half a million regulated facilities in one zip file. There up to 85 data fields available for each facility, including the frequency of inspections, violations, actions, and penalties. The file includes Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and other data, such Toxics Release Inventory releases, industry codes, and permit types. Also included is the latitude/longitude information - which will allow users to integrate facility locations into maps, mobile apps, and third party websites.

Establishing a definitive regulated universe of facilities under the RCRA program is difficult and dependent on a number of factors. Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities and Large Quantity Generators have more frequent reporting requirements - allowing EPA and states to track the active regulated universe to some extent. It is more difficult to track active facilities for smaller hazardous waste handlers. While other programs, such as the Clean Water Act, require permits that are issued and renewed every five years, RCRA has only an initial notification from the regulated entity. No regulatory requirements mandate that facilities other than Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities that once handled hazardous waste notify that they have ceased waste management activities, or that the amount of waste they handle has changed. Most RCRA handlers do not have a "permit" and associated permit end date, and it is often difficult for EPA and states to know when a RCRA handler is no longer operating. For this reason and historical purposes, the RCRA database contains records for facilities that are no longer operating. If EPA or the states learn of facilities that are out of business, they are inactivated in the national database, RCRAInfo.

Because the quality of the universe information varies, it is not appropriate to compare one state's data with another without knowing the accuracy of the data and details of the compliance monitoring program in each state. Although these numbers represent the active universe in the national database, RCRAInfo, the states may have more current information. Links to state environmental agency web sites may be found in the Other Resources box below each state dashboard.