ECHO Comments Archive

"The Inspection and enforcement summary as well as the complaince summary does not show that a facility was inspected by EPCRA 313 and was found in violation of EPCRA 313. This is misleading to the public since they will think the facility is in complaince and not realize there ate other environmental laws. It is true that the Formal Enforcement actions may list a complaint but the EPA formal enfocement action does not. Also, if there was no case, then there would be no evidence that the facility was inspected. This is a problem with ECHO since it is misleading the public."

"It has been my complaint about OTIS and now ECHO. I guess it is a long standing complaint by the "small programs" although many of the "small programs" are significant in the number of enforcement action we develop (especially considering the few people working in the programs compared to CAA, CWA & RCRA). I don't know the inter-workings of NCDB but hopefully a few examples will demonstrate the problems. Also, since we enter data into FTTS I thought it goes to IDEA and eventually NCDB so the data should be available if you pull the right fields. Look at the old [xxx] now called [xxx] [xxx] It was inspect on [xxx] (yes, over two years ago). But it does not show up under inspection & enforcement summary data. However, you do see old inspections showing CAA on [xxx], CWA on [xxx]& RCRA on [xxx] (the dates are a bit strange since this was a multi-media inspection). The CAA one is even older than the TRI inspection but TRI does not show up. The inspection data was entered into FTTS so should be in IDEA and thus, I assume, NCDB. This inspection & enforcement summary block doesn't say there had to be a violation, just that it was inspected. In [xxx] situation it was both inspected and had a violation but it only show up on a formal enforcement block further down on the screen. If it didn't have an action in the last two years, it wouldn't show up anywhere. This is what I mean by the database is misleading. It only clearly shows the enforcement data for CAA, CWA, & RCRA.... If we are not included, then it appears that we were never there. I hope this can be fixed. If not, there should be a qualifier under several of the text blocks stating that TSCA and EPCRA inspections are not represented in ECHO except for the Formal (or EPA Formal) enforcement action blocks. Thanks for addressing this...."

"...Echo shows the inspections that are older than 2 years (e.g, [xxx]) if it is tied to a permit. Maybe that is the problem since TRI inspections are not tied to permits. What the public sees in the [xxx] example is old inspections showing CAA on [xxx], CWA on [xxx]& RCRA on [xxx] but not the [xxx] TRI inspection (which is not as old as the [xxx] CAA). It is not clear to the public that these are only permit inspections. All they see is that there are two blocks stating enforcement and TRI or TSCA never seemed to enforce. Where there is no violation (such as [xxx] which is only 6 months old) the public does not see us at all...."
- EPA user

"WHY hasn't the $5.5 MILLION fine against this facility in [xxx] shown up on ECHO? What kind of joke is it?"
- Unaffiliated user

Phoned Comments

...It seems laborious to go through sending in an error report without being able to confirm that these data are incorrect.
- Commercial user