Very cool news from the EPA today. There is a dashboard that has interactive maps at the state level where users can view compliance information. It categorizes areas by their air, water and waste laws to inform the public about the state and EPA envorcement and compliance programs across the country. It is very cool – zooms in and out like Google Maps, and when you click on a state, a pop up box appears with links to the state and national dashboards. Spend some time and check it out when you have an opportunity. It may not list all of the compliance in your area, but it does let you know which areas are being inspected, and what the results were.
View the state performance dashboards and comparative maps: http://www.epa-echo.gov/echo/stateperformance/comparative_maps.html
Visit EPA’s ECHO website: http://www.epa-echo.gov
Here is an image from my screen:
Here is the EPA’s statement:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 7, 2013
EPA Releases State Enforcement Performance Information and Comparative Maps
Agency to host webinar demonstrating new data features
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the release of state dashboards and comparative maps that provide the public with information about the performance of state and EPA enforcement and compliance programs across the country.
“Transparency and access to information at all levels helps to drive improvements in environmental performance,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Today’s release of state enforcement information highlights the important work going on at the state level to address serious pollution problems and also underscores areas where states and EPA may need to strengthen enforcement and compliance efforts.”
Most states and tribes in the United States have the authority to implement and enforce many of the nation’s air, water and waste laws. The dashboards and maps include state level data from the last five years and provide information including the number of completed inspections, types of violations found, enforcement actions taken, and penalties assessed by state. To ensure data quality, EPA made the maps and dashboards available to the states in advance of this public release, in order to provide an opportunity to make any necessary data corrections.
Users can customize the dashboards to view state activity, EPA activity, or combined activity. Where available, the site also allows users to view national averages and display state enforcement trends over time.
The interactive state performance dashboards are located on EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) website. ECHO is an EPA transparency tool that allows the user to map federal and state inspection, violation, and enforcement information for more than 800,000 regulated facilities. The state dashboards and comparative maps that are available in ECHO are part of EPA’s commitment to increasing transparency and providing data to the public in a format that is easy to understand and use.