EPA’s New Tool for Tracking Water Pollution

The EPA has created a new tool that allows the public to see what data the federal government has on point source discharges into the nation’s waters. The Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) Pollutant Loading Tool allows for easy searching and mapping of water pollution by local area, watershed, company, industry sector, and pollutant.

Each point source that makes a discharge into the nation’s waterways must get a permit from the EPA under the Clean Water Act. Each permit sets specific limits for how much can be discharged. It also requires the permittee to frequently sample their wastewater discharges and report the data to their state or EPA permitting authority.

The DMR Pollutant Loading Tool makes all of the reported data easily searchable. For example, a quick search reveals information on 1,113permitted facilities in Wisconsin.

The EPA has also highlighted “everyday searches” it believes will be of interest to the public:

Search EPA Lookup Tables. These look up tables provide an easy way to access information and the connections used by the Loading Tool. For example, you can use your zip code to find the name of your watershed.

Top Industrial Dischargers of Toxic Pollutants. This search provides a listing of the industrial sectors, grouped by EPA’s Effluent Guidelines Point Source Categories, by the cumulative amount of toxic pollutant discharges (in units of toxic-weighted pound equivalents or ‘TWPE’).

State Statistics and Loadings.

Completeness of Clean Water Act Discharge Monitoring Data by State - Universe Facilities. This map shows the percentage of individually permitted “majors” and “non-majors” that have DMR data in EPA’s data systems (PCS or ICIS-NPDES).

This post was authored by GLLF staff attorney Emily Kelchen.