EPA sees better enforcement with NPDES e-reporting rule

摘要

The EPA has released its prepubli-cation version of the final rule for NPDES electronic reporting. The rule is a significant product of the Agency's 2009 Clean Water Act Action Plan, which has indicated a crucial need to improve inspection of both significant industrial users and smaller entities and to ensure that enforcement addresses violations that pose the greatest danger to water quality and public health. The EPA and authorized NPDES permitting authorities have difficulty in efficiently accessing information submitted by the hundreds of thousands of facilities subject to the NPDES program. Much of that information is already submitted electronically, but paper submissions are common. According to the Agency, the final rule will significantly improve access to data and the ability to act on that data by transitioning over a 5-year period to mandatory electronic reporting of all data required under the NPDES program.