Please see ECHO's Compliance Monitoring Expectations page for more information.

Under the Clean Water Act all facilities that discharge pollutants from any point source into waters of the United States are required to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. The permit provides two levels of control: technology-based limits (based on the ability of dischargers in the same industrial category to treat wastewater) and water quality-based limits (if technology-based limits are not sufficient to provide protection of the water body). The NPDES program also requires controls on industrial discharges to sewage treatment plants ("pretreatment program”) and the management and disposal of biosolids from sewage treatment plants ("biosolids program”).

The CWA allows EPA to authorize the NPDES program to state governments, enabling states to perform many of the permitting, administrative, and enforcement aspects of the NPDES Program. Most states currently have authorized NPDES programs. In these states, EPA still retains oversight responsibilities. EPA works closely with the states and tribes to implement federal environmental programs. States and tribes authorized to manage federal programs must have enforcement authorities that are at least as stringent as federal law. EPA works with officials in state and tribal environmental, health and agricultural agencies on strategic planning, priority-setting and measurement of results.

Finally, separate from the NPDES program, EPA uses its authority under Section 311 of the CWA to implement procedures, methods, equipment, and other requirements to prevent discharges of oil from vessels and facilities and to contain such discharges when they occur.

The data comes from EPA and authorized state and local environmental agencies, which report into the national data system, the Integrated Compliance Information System for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (ICIS-NPDES), and via the Annual Noncompliance Report. 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.

All facilities that discharge pollutants through a point source into waters of the United States are regulated by EPA and states under the NPDES program. These include municipal and industrial sources of wastewater pollution. The NPDES program also regulates wastewater from industrial facilities connected to the publicly-owned treatment works (POTWs) sewerage system through the pretreatment program and biosolids from POTWs through the biosolids program. Another main part of the NPDES program is regulating discharges related to wet-weather events. The majority of facilities covered by the NPDES Program are stormwater discharging facilities. These wet weather enforcement programs regulate the following discharges:

• Stormwater Discharges From Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s)
• Road-Related Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s)
• Stormwater Discharges From Construction Activities
• Stormwater Discharges From Industrial Facilities
• Combined Sewer Overflows
• Sanitary Sewer Overflows
• Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)

You can find compliance and enforcement information about facilities using the ECHO Facility Search. Users can search based on ZIP code, city, or other area of interest. The output from your searches can be displayed on a map.

For approximately 47,000 facilities (individually permitted facilities designated as ‘Majors' and some facilities designated as ‘Non-Majors') EPA collects key information including:

• the universe of facilities regulated under the NPDES program,
• permit limits for these facilities,
• facility discharge reports that relate to permit limits,
• noncompliance (determined by comparing the discharge report measurement to the permitted limit, or by other means such as inspections),
• the severity of violations (significant noncompliance or SNC for major sources, and Category I violations for smaller non-major permittees),
• whether informal or formal enforcement actions were taken, and
• whether penalties were assessed. 

You can also use the Clean Water Act Annual Noncompliance Report (ANCR) to see recent information about smaller Clean Water Act direct dischargers (known as "non-majors"). Under the Clean Water Act Action Plan, EPA is working to enhance public transparency regarding clean water enforcement performance at federal and state levels, to strengthen that performance, and to transform EPA's water quality and compliance information systems.

Note: this functionality is being rebuilt with an expected release date of May 2014. Using the ECHO Water Facility Search, when you perform a query, you will see a blue "W" icon on the results page that will bring forward several data layers that allow you to see whether a watershed into which a facility is discharging is impaired. Information is not available in all states.