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Clean Water Act: EPA Needs to Better Assess and Disclose Quality of Compliance and Enforcement Data

GAO-21-290 Published: Jul 12, 2021. Publicly Released: Jul 12, 2021.
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Fast Facts

The EPA uses National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits to regulate wastewater discharges. However, nearly 11,000 facilities significantly exceeded their permit limits and illegally discharged pollutants into nearby waters in 2018.

EPA has a goal to reduce by half significant noncompliance with individual NPDES permits by the end of FY 2022. But the data that states and facilities report to EPA to help track compliance is incomplete and has errors.

We recommended (among other things) assessing the quality of the NPDES data that states and facilities are reporting so EPA can be sure it's making progress toward its goal.

Pipe discharging wastewater into freshwater

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Highlights

What GAO Found

Since 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has modified one of its three national initiatives emphasizing compliance with the Clean Water Act and has discontinued two others (see fig.). The goal of the modified initiative is to reduce significant noncompliance with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits by half by the end of fiscal year 2022. Such permits set limits on discharges of wastewater from point sources, such as a pipe from an industrial facility. This goal supports EPA's strategic objective to increase compliance with environmental laws in its strategic plan for fiscal years 2018-2022. EPA discontinued its initiatives focused on animal waste pollution and raw sewage and stormwater runoff, returning these areas to the core enforcement program in 2018 and 2019, respectively. As a result, these areas no longer receive the heightened attention and focused resources of the national initiatives, but the agency still pursues enforcement actions when needed.

Changes in EPA's Clean Water Act National Initiatives

Changes in EPA's Clean Water Act National Initiatives

EPA posts data that states report on their NPDES compliance and enforcement activities to its website, but the data are not reliable for identifying changes in the number of activities states conducted since 2015. EPA's most recent assessment of states' data showed that two of 17 states met expectations for the accuracy and completeness of the data recorded in the agency's national database. EPA is working with states to improve their data, and it includes on its website disclosures by some states about problems and limitations with their data. However, the agency has not ensured that all states' disclosures are consolidated, complete, and updated. Until it does so, potential users of the data may not fully understand the data or the data's limitations.

EPA developed a measure to track progress toward its goal for reducing the rate of significant noncompliance by NPDES facilities with individual permits by the end of fiscal year 2022. While the measure tracks changes in the number of facilities in significant noncompliance, the results of the measure are unclear because data EPA needs to track compliance are incomplete and contain inaccuracies. According to EPA, about 70 percent of NDPES facilities have sufficiently complete data in the national database for EPA to track compliance. EPA is working with states to improve data quality, but it does not have a plan to assess the overall accuracy of the data. Until it does so, EPA cannot be certain what its measure is showing and if EPA is making progress toward its goal.

Why GAO Did This Study

EPA partners with states to oversee compliance with and enforcement of the Clean Water Act. In fiscal year 2020, there were roughly 335,000 facilities with active NPDES permits, which are used to regulate wastewater discharges under the act. In 2015, EPA began requiring states and facilities to electronically report data on their NPDES activities. EPA estimated that in 2018, nearly 11,000 facilities significantly exceeded their permit limits and illegally discharged pollutants into nearby waters, which may pose serious threats to human health and the environment.

GAO was asked to review EPA's enforcement of the Clean Water Act. This report examines (1) changes since 2015 in EPA's national initiatives for ensuring compliance with the act, (2) changes in NPDES compliance and enforcement activities since 2015, and (3) the extent to which EPA is measuring progress toward compliance with the NPDES program. GAO reviewed and analyzed EPA documents and data on NPDES compliance and enforcement activities. GAO also interviewed officials from eight states, selected in part by EPA region, to learn about their NPDES compliance and enforcement activities and data reporting.

Recommendations

GAO is making four recommendations, including that EPA consolidate, complete, and update disclosures of data limitations on its reporting website and develop a plan to assess the overall quality of state reported NPDES data. EPA generally agreed with these recommendations.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance should revise its guidance to select files for its State Review Framework assessments of state-reported data to incorporate statistically valid probability sampling. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In December 2022, EPA said that the Office of Compliance will develop randomization tools and a pilot for direct implementation states, which are those overseen by EPA. EPA plans to select and implement such a tool for all Clean Water Act file selection by the State Review Framework Round 6 cycle. EPA expects select tools to use for the pilot and complete the pilot process instructions in fiscal year 2023. We will continue to monitor these actions.
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance should ensure that consolidated, complete, and updated information on all data limitations is disclosed on the State Water Dashboard. (Recommendation 2)
Open – Partially Addressed
As of December 2022, EPA has partially implemented this recommendation. For example, EPA has added additional links to its "About the Data" page in each dashboard's "Key Links" area to make this more visible to users. In addition, EPA stated it has developed a strategy to complete implementing the rest of the changes but was delayed due to a software upgrade. EPA stated they expected to complete implementing the strategy on existing pages in fiscal year 2023. GAO will continue to follow up with EPA and review any further actions to determine whether the strategy has been completed.
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance should develop a plan to determine the overall accuracy and completeness of the permit limit and discharge monitoring report data recorded in its national database. (Recommendation 3)
Open
In June 2022, EPA stated that it agrees with the recommendation and will address it through a two-phase plan. First, EPA said it will continue to work with states to identify and correct problems that prevent proper transfer of discharge monitoring report data to the Integrated Compliance Information System (ICIS-NPDES) and work to maximize the amount of discharge monitoring report data and all necessary permit limit data in the system. Second, EPA will develop a methodology and outcome measure for tracking the extent to which the significant noncompliance national compliance initiative achieves reductions in illegal pollutant discharges. The agency stated it anticipates completing these steps by September 30, 2025. EPA's December 2022 response provided the same updated action for recommendation 3 and 4, which is not responsive to this recommendation. We requested EPA to clarify the status of this recommendation and will continue to follow further actions.
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance should develop a performance measure to track the reduction in pollutant discharges resulting from enforcement actions for facilities in significant noncompliance and disclose any limitations. (Recommendation 4)
Open
As of December 2022, EPA stated that in January 2023 it would begin measuring the average amount of pollutants discharged over the effluent limits set in CWA/NPDES permits. They planned to start by pulling the data for this measure for calendar years 2021 and 2022 and then pull the data annually thereafter in January of each previous calendar year. EPA stated it would identify trends in this measure over time to assess whether EPA and state compliance work is positively impacting the reduction in average discharges over the permitted levels. We will continue to follow-up on the agency's actions.

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