Proposed EPA Electronic Reporting Rule Would Impact Industry, Municipalities, and Technology Suppliers

Aug. 26, 2013
ARC Advisory Group has released a report on EPA's proposed electronic reporting rule that would affect wastewater dischargers in the United States

The words "Environmental Protection Agency" and "Big Data" go hand in hand. The US EPA ultimately collects, analyzes, and disseminates data and information on water and air discharges and emissions (including rolling averages) from hundreds of thousands of federal, state, municipal, industrial, and commercial entities on a monthly basis.

Currently, municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants and other facilities with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) wastewater discharge permits submit much of this data to state and other regulatory authorities in paper form, which must then manually enter the data into the appropriate EPA or other data systems for rollup, analysis, and presentation. However, EPA recently proposed a rule that would mandate electronic reporting for all NPDES "permittees."

According to EPA, the proposed e-reporting rule would facilitate mak-ing facility-specific information, such as inspection and enforcement history, pollutant monitoring results, and other data accessible to the public through the Agency's website.

ARC Advisory Group clients can view the complete report at this Link.