What's New in ECHO?

April 2020

The Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) website is updated frequently based on Agency priorities and user requests. This email will go over new features available to you in ECHO that have been added over the past couple months. Remember you can register for upcoming ECHO Webinars and view recorded webinars anytime on the ECHO Training page! Check out the updated ECHO Tool Guide to find the best feature for your needs. New ECHO features described below are:

• Links to EPA Inspection Reports and Enforcement Documents Added (February 2020)
• Fiscal Year 2020 Data Downloads (January 2020)
• Biosolids Annual Report Data Search Added (November 2019)
• Search for EPA Cases by Pollutant (October 2019)
• NPDES DMR Non-Receipt Status Search (October 2019)

Links to EPA Inspection Reports and Enforcement Documents Added (February 2020)

In 2017, ECHO began linking to enforcement documents, primarily posted by EPA Region 6. In January 2020, this capability expanded to offer additional EPA compliance and enforcement documents, which can provide context about summary data on an ECHO Detailed Facility Report. When available, these documents are accessible in ECHO via corresponding Detailed Facility Reports and Civil Enforcement Case Reports. Look for a link to "EPA Facility Documents" found in the "Related Documents" section of the Facility Summary.

Fiscal Year 2020 Data Downloads (January 2020)

On the ECHO Data Downloads page, the federal fiscal year 2020 data set was added for wastewater discharger Discharge Monitoring Report data. Also, facility searches and reports were updated with the EJSCREEN 2019 release.

Biosolids Annual Report Data Search Added (November 2019)

=46rom the ECHO Biosolids Facility Search, the Biosolids Annual Report data was separated into a distinct search, the Biosolids Annual Report Facility Search. This change was made to provide users with an opportunity to search Biosolids Annual Reports that were submitted electronically to EPA, but whose data are no longer flowing to the legacy system. Users can search 2018 annual reports by NPDES ID, state, amount of biosolids generated, management practice type or detail, and violations to view high-level annual report data. The Biosolids Facility Search continues to provide searching for compliance monitoring and enforcement data.

Search for EPA Cases by Pollutant (October 2019)

On the EPA Enforcement Case Search, users can search for cases by pollutant in the Case Attributes section. A column listing the pollutants associated with a case also can be added to search results using the Customize Columns feature. While pollutant data display on the Civil Enforcement Case Report, search capability wasn't available until now.

NPDES DMR Non-Receipt Status Search (October 2019)

The Clean Water Act NPDES DMR Non-Receipt Status Search offers improved ability to filter and sort results, including limiting search results to particular types of non-receipt statuses and date ranges. Results columns provide additional information on number of missing DMR forms or values. This search makes it easy to identify unresolved Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) non-receipt violations before quarterly permit compliance status data are displayed on the ECHO Detailed Facility Report. Additionally, for applicable Clean Water Act wastewater dischargers, the Detailed Facility Report now displays Industrial Effluent Guidelines in the Facility/System Characteristics section. Effluent Guidelines are the national standards for industrial wastewater discharges to surface waters and publicly owned treatment works (municipal sewage treatment plants).

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