EPA Launches New Website to Track Safe Drinking Water Compliance

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Safe Drinking Water Act dashboard, a website that tracks whether public water systems are complying with the laws that keep our water safe and clean.

Clean water is a precious resource. That’s why the EPA sets standards for drinking water quality under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and works with state, tribal, and territorial agencies to oversee implementation of those standards.  At the same time, the Obama Administration continues to advance its open data initiatives – focused on unleashing data across range of topics to empower citizens, communities, entrepreneurs and businesses with the information they need to innovate and make informed decisions.

The SDWA Dashboard released last week sits at the nexus of these two important policy efforts. The Dashboard openly tracks data about water-facility inspection visits, enforcement actions, and more. Interactive charts show detailed data about facility reports for individual public water systems. Everything on the dashboard can be exported, downloaded and printed.

The SDWA Dashboard is connected to EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) website, which hosts thousands of visitors each month who are seeking information about the compliance status of facilities in their communities. Users can also investigate pollution sources, examine and create enforcement-related maps, or explore any state's performance with respect to several environmental laws. ECHO is a great example of government transparency, and of EPA’s commitment to engage the public in environmental protection.

With expanded access to data, anyone can get informed and help play a role in keeping communities safe and healthy.

Corinna Zarek is the Senior Advisor for Open Government to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Lisa Lund is the Director of the Office of Compliance at the Environmental Protection Agency