EPA Releases Final ECHO Database

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has completed the pilot phase of its Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) website. EPA finalized the site after reviewing extensive feedback received on the pilot version from the general public, public interest groups, government users, trade associations and regulated entities. ECHO is an Internet tool developed and maintained by the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) and provides access to facility-level compliance and enforcement information for approximately 800,000 regulated facilities nationwide. The data included within ECHO has previously been publicly available, but not in one searchable online format. The ECHO site also includes EPA’s response to the comments received during its public comment period plus statistics on site use, error notifications and error responses during this time. The pilot ECHO site generated thousands of errors reports, many of which resulted in information correction. This clearly shows the value of online access in ensuring accurate data. Users may continue to submit error notifications using an error-reporting feature. To learn more about the ECHO database, visit EPA’s site at http://epa.gov/echo/ and read OMB Watch’s article on the ECHO feedback meeting.
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