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EPA Launches Interactive Clean Water Act Violations Website

Friday, April 30, 2010

Another exciting transparency tool from the US: interactive disclosure of yearly clean water act violations. According to the EPA's Press Release:

The new web page provides interactive information from EPA’s 2008 Annual Noncompliance Report, which pertains to about 40,000 permitted Clean Water Act dischargers across the country. The report lists state-by-state summary data of violations and enforcement responses taken by the states for smaller facilities. The new web page also makes it easy to compare states by compliance rates and enforcement actions taken and provides access to updated State Review Framework (SRF) reports. 


Disclosure is a way of increasing the compliance level of a rule. Water quality may have implications to land values and effluent quality reflects a company's efficiency level. With more stakeholders scrutinizing your company, it is expected that you would be more careful about your waste level. Otherwise, either investors will take action to remove the managers, or, the local citizen will take action for their diminishing property value.

Have a look at the site, here.