(Washington D.C.)- The Environmental Protection Agency needs to update its data collection involving oil and chemical spills in the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and Detroit River areas, three Michigan Democrats said Friday.

The General Accountability Office said in a report sought by the lawmakers that the EPA must upgrade spill information and whether spill notification processes can be improved by EPA and Coast Guard officials in the Great Lakes region.

Congress' investigative arm found there were 991 spill reports from the U.S. side of the corridor comprising the two rivers and lake, compared with 157 spills reported by Canadian officials.

The GAO said "these reports do not accurately portray the actual number of volume of spills" and said the EPA "does not remove all duplicate spill reports, or update its data after investigating spills."

In addition, EPA was "uncertain of which specific facilities are subject to regulation under its spill prevention program," the report found.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the report "demonstrates that the Environmental Protection Agency simply doesn't have the accurate data needed to assess the impact and severity of spills in the St. Clair-Detroit River corridor."

EPA officials said they were reviewing the report and could not immediately comment on it.

The 98-mile corridor linking lakes Huron and Erie is part of the U.S.-Canadian boundary and provides drinking water for more than 5 million people. The lawmakers said about 500 facilities, such as chemical companies, oil refineries and power plants, are located in the area.

Levin, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, urged EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson in a letter to have the agency gather information on which facilities are regulated under its existing spill prevention program.

They also asked for rulemaking to address spill prevention from hazardous substances, an upgrade from the current assessment that is limited to oil spills, and increased funding for inspections.

The report was sought following severe spills in the region in 2003 and 2004. It found that spill notification on both sides are left largely to the companies or parties responsible for the spills and many go unreported.

EPA, meanwhile, conducts only a handful of inspections within the corridor each year. The inspections found "significant and numerous spill prevention deficiencies," the report said, but the agency issued only four fines from 1994 to 2004.

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