EPA announced via a May 16 press release the availability of a Drinking Water Data Search within the agency’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO). The drinking watersearch page allows users to “search to see whether drinking water in their community met the standards required under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).”
The database is a more user-friendly interface than previously existed for SDWIS data and is searchable by source water type, popoulation served and violation type. Violations are reported per PWSID. The database also includes an important list of data caveats about the limitations of the data, including time lags in the reported data, and known data problems for dertain states.
The database is currently in beta testing and EPA is currently accepting comments (which can be submitted via the databases tool). EPA expects to finalize the database in three to six months.
A report for any given PWSID also includes information about sanitary surveys over the last decade, compliance summary information and detailed information about violations and enforcement actions, including dates that compliance issues were resolved.
According to the press release, “EPA’s enforcement goals for clean water include working with states and tribes to ensure clean drinking water for all communities and improving transparency by making facility compliance data available to the public. The release of drinking water violations data in ECHO advances these goals and creates additional incentives for government agencies to improve their reporting of drinking water violations and increase efforts to address those violations.”