Data Use a Key Element of EPA Clean Water Plan

Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency released a "Clean Water Act Enforcement Action Plan." The plan lays out a broad vision for clean water enforcement as well as specific goals the agency will take in the coming months and years to improve enforcement at the state and federal level.

One thing in particular piqued my interest: the call for better utilization of existing data. EPA will place an increased emphasis on sharing data, including state-level data. More importantly, EPA wants to explore new ways to use data to facilitate clean water enforcement efforts:

A critical first and immediate step we will take to initiate this new approach is to link environmental information to compliance data to inform the targeting of our compliance and enforcement efforts. EPA will incorporate data about water quality standards, existing water quality status (including information developed in conjunction with establishing Total Maximum Daily Loads for impaired water bodies), permit limits and effluent violations to evaluate where violations contribute to water quality impairment. These data currently reside in different systems and have not been routinely used together to help target serious problems. This effort would also include analyzing newly available information on pollutant loadings and toxicity against compliance history and watershed impairment information to identify facilities that require additional compliance monitoring or civil or criminal enforcement attention. This analysis will identify where good compliance performance at the biggest facilities may allow a shift of enforcement attention on other sources that are causing more significant water quality impacts. 

That’s some complicated stuff, but it makes sense. By using data to identify links between water quality and the activities of polluting facilities, EPA can get more bang for its buck.

Elsewhere in the new enforcement plan, EPA talks about improving transparency and accountability. I hope EPA ties these two goals together. EPA should work to make existing data not only available to the public (some already is) but easily digestible. If the agency harnesses web technology to better link environmental information and compliance data, those tools should also be made available to the public.

By doing so, EPA will deputize citizens in the fight against polluted water. Anyone with internet access could mine data and, with some understanding of water quality and regulatory issues, help EPA identify problem spots and prioritize its enforcement work. Involving more citizens could prove both empowering and effective.

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