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ECHO Comments Archive |
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"Please keep it available!!" "Site is clearly layed out. Search functions efficiently arranged.
I was able to quickly access the information I sought by county..." "Excellent web site. Hope it stays." "I used my ZIP code to look at compliance reporting and found
the reports incomprehensible for a regular citizen. A couple of
site inspections were reported and no way to interpret what the
results were. I think reports should use plan language and not obscure
codes." "The web site is helpful at finding past enforcement activity
if you know the facility name and city location. A good start. I'm
hesitant to count on it, however, for comprehensive company enforcement
information... I noticed that the search didn't pick up [xxx] facility
in [xxx], Wyoming--because it goes under a different name. That
facility, by the way has a pending EPA lawsuit seeking [xxx] for
repeat air violations. When I found the "Detailed Facility
Report" it did not note that amount, although it did note there
was "violation unaddressed; EPA has lead enforcement."
I thought I heard that EPA would charge for access to ECHO after
the pilot, but I didn't see anything about that in your information
materials." "(1) Does the site provide meaningful and useful information
about the compliance and enforcement program? Yes, but there are
a lot of unexplained entries. (2) Is the site easy to navigate?
Fairly. (3) Does the help text adequately explain the data? No,
there are a lot of unknown/unexplained acronyms. (4) What additional
features, content, and/or modifications would improve the site?
Unknown/No comment..." "[xxx]. I tried out ECHO and was impressed by the quick and
informative results. This must have been a massive undertaking..." "Searching ECHO for [xxx], returns many useful records for
eight facilities, including the [xxx] and the [xxx] plant. But I
can't see anything in these records which would indicate that [xxx]
is in the midst of an oil recovery program from local groundwater
that has ALREADY returned 33,000,000 gallons of crude oil and product
(THREE TIMES the size of the Exxon Valdez spill), or that there
has just been initiated a program to recover an ADDITIONAL 1,000,000
gallons from underneath the [xxx] plant. [How to better show longer
term and cumulative history??] Furthermore, in the summary table
that first presents the data for [xxx], there's no way to understand
that the [xxx] is a little bit more significant as a source of pollution
than the [xxx].[Better indicators of scale of non compliance and
potential impacts?] Finally, even though this is supposed to be
a facility-based reporting system, it shows the [xxx], [xxx], and
[xxx] as separate facilities, NOT adjacent to each other in the
display tables. In matter of fact all three facilities are part
of the same large industrial complex and the average observer could
not define where one starts and the other stops. [How to better
reflect geography in the reports??] thanks for a good first shot,
but let's see what we can do to improve geography and history..." "I just found ECHO and it is great. My only question is what
took you so long. Well worth the wait. This is one of those few
times that a government benefit reaches down to every city, town
and neighborhood across America. My tax dollars spent on ECHO are
well worth the cost. Thanks" "It would help to be able to enter the river basin number
directly in the box -- apparently now you're supposed to be able
to get it to appear there by clicking on it on the map or list..." "Thank you so much for providing enforcement information in
an easily ascertainable manner. Citizens definitely have a right
to such information and it is good for society to have such information
freely disseminated. Improvements: 1. More comprehensive information
(eg. how many violations, enforcement actions taken, type of violations,
etc) 2. I have noticed some sites where I know that there are violations
but none are registered on the website. As such, I wonder whether
the information is comprehensive. Thank you for the opportunity
to submit comments." "This is an excellent resource to help citizens understand
the impact of facilities near their communities. I also like the
"report error" button. Presumably, facilities will look
at their own listings to ensure that the violations reported did
indeed occur. Please keep this site." "I like this site very much and believe it will be very helpfull
in finding companies who are in non compliance. We can find leads
for people we can actually help." "Great site and great idea! I would like to see you provide
more detailed information on violations: 1-what the violation was,
specifically, if it was a spill, what chemical/etc. was spilled,
and so on. 2-how the problem was resolved, specifically, how was
the spill cleaned up, for example. We would also like to see inclusion
of reports on [xxx] in [xxx], GA, borders our neighborhood and has
been the site of numerous toxic spills and coverups. We live in
a new neighborhood in an area fringed by entrenched industrial neighbors
that appear to be careless and irresponsible. This information would
be extremely helpful to us. Thanks!" "This is a very helpful, convenient information source. Please
make the website permanent." "...Suggest this data be connected to the reported [studied]
quality parameters for air, water, etc in the region of interest.
It does little good to know about plant XYZ when a whole area's
air is polluted by a power generation plant or outflows contaminate
a watershed..." "The first search option is by City/ZIP Code. An "Advance
Search" allows searches by a number of criteria. The layout
for this search is excellent. It should not be hidden as hypertext.
There should be two equal search opportunities at the top level
of the program--Search by Geographical Location and Search by User
entered criteria." "We're very pleased with the Echo web site. Please keep it
available beyond the 60 day comment period. It is a valuable tool,
and we will put it to use in the future." "This type of information is useful. Please keep it available." "I am delighted that such a data base of information exists
and it a wonderful compliment to WME! I have passed this information
on to several others. However, as I searched for information in
neighborhoods of interest I did see that the results page is a little
bit confusing. ESPECIALLY for someone who wouldn't be aware of what
all the jargon and the set up means. The categorized tables were
fine. But it would require re-naming some of the columns and rows
to make sense to the LAY PERSON. [xxx] I am viewing this as a partial
lay person, and I personally think it should be broken down a bit
to be more friendly. Perhaps convert some of the tables into paragraphs
that way one can understand it better... ...just some thoughts..." "The information on this site is vital to our organization.
Please keep it available." "Thanks for being able to comment. The Echo site is great
and helps folks trying to clean up a community and keep a community
healthy with a unique and valuable source of pollutor and emissions
type information." "Thank you for providing a resource like ECHO. The information
on this website may help interested citizens keep an eye on known
polluters. If government is going to keep enforcemnet costs to a
minimum, it is wise to enlighten local citizens and let them lend
a hand." "The ECHO website is what American citizens have needed for
a long time, transparancy. We have both the right to know what is
happenong in our communities and the responsibility to comment on
or concerns and needs as citizens. Keep this website going. Thank
you." "...How can I determine for certain what condition is specifically
being referenced by these compliance status codes so that I can
correctly comment on the accuracy of the data? Some link for each
item or short instructions for each reference to locate additional
specific information would be very helpful." "Given that the facility returned to compliance during the
quarter, there should be some way to communicate this to the public.
The facility was not in compliance during the entire quarter, nor
were they in violation during the entire quarter, but returned to
compliance during the quarter. Is it possible for the datasystem
to make this distinction?..." "1. Great and needed information, thanks. 2. TWO years may
be fine for immediate concerns and minor problems, but I would also
like to know about less common, "serious" level violations
that go back at least TEN years. Could there be an option to search
for serious, older issues? 3. A lot of the information is technical
and beyond my basic grasp. It would be nice to have more of it in
laymans terms, but I understand the difficuclties in doing so. I
would rather have it technical, then not available at all. 4. In
addition to the FAQ and acronyms, consider having an ECHO terminology
dictionary." Phoned Comment: For compliance history under RCRA, caller suggested that it is
confusing that a date shows up when the facility returns to compliance. |
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