From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: The Challenges with Enforcing the Clean Water Act and Monitoring Pollution Description: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees and enforces compliance with the Clean Water Act. Under EPA's oversight, entities like industrial facilities and municipal wastewater treatment plants are issued permits that limit the amount of pollutants they can discharge into the nation's waters. However, EPA recently estimated that as many as 11,000 facilities significantly and illegally exceeded their limits. We talk with GAO’s Alfredo Gomez to find out more. Related GAO Work: GAO-21-290, Clean Water Act: EPA Needs to Better Assess and Disclose Quality of Compliance and Enforcement Data Released: July 2021 [Intro Music] [Alfredo Gomez:] EPA and the states collect a lot of data to oversee and enforce the Clean Water Act. And it's important that that data are complete and accurate. [Holly Hobbs:] Hi, and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report. Your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office celebrating 100 years, a fact-based, nonpartisan government oversight. I'm Holly Hobbs. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, oversees and enforces compliance with the Clean Water Act. Under EPA's oversight, entities like industrial facilities and municipal wastewater treatment plants are issued permits that limit the amount of pollutants they can discharge into the nation's waters. However, EPA recently estimated that as many as 11,000 facilities significantly and illegally exceeded their limits. Today, we'll talk with Alfredo Gomez, an expert on environmental protection policy and a director at our Natural Resources and Environment Team, about the challenges EPA faces when monitoring and enforcing the Clean Water Act. Thank you for joining us, Alfredo. [Alfredo Gomez:] Thank you for having me. [Holly Hobbs:] So, Alfredo, giving someone a permit to pollute sounds bad, but there's a reason for it, right? [Alfredo Gomez:] That's correct. Under the Clean Water Act, it's unlawful to release pollutants into U.S. waters without a permit. EPA sets limits on the amount of pollutants that can be released from an industrial facility or a municipal wastewater treatment plant. For example, how much ammonia can be released. That's included in the permit. [Holly Hobbs:] And how many permits are there and how do they work? [Alfredo Gomez:] Currently, there are about 335,000 facilities with active permits. The category of facilities are complex, but they generally fall into major and non-major facilities. So the major facilities include municipal wastewater treatment plants that release more than a million gallons per day, and industrial facilities that are releasing higher levels of toxic pollutants. Major facilities account for about 7,000 facilities. [Holly Hobbs:] So if there's more than 330,000 facilities across the U.S. with permits, how is EPA monitoring them all to make sure they aren't illegally dumping? [Alfredo Gomez:] Yes, EPA partners with states, with territories and tribes to oversee the program. And what EPA does is, EPA with the states, conduct a variety of activities, including inspections and identifying violations. States are required to report on their inspections and enforcement activities to EPA. Facilities, also monitor and report their pollutant discharge levels. This is important because this allows EPA to automatically calculate whether a facility is exceeding its discharge limits. And this helps EPA and the states track illegal discharges and pollution. [Holly Hobbs:] And something our report looked at is the shift by EPA from paper records to electronic reporting on compliance with the Clean Water Act. Can you talk about that? [Alfredo Gomez:] So EPA began, in 2015, to require states and facilities to electronically report their program and permit information, such as inspections, discharge levels and violations. This gives EPA one of the most comprehensive databases among the environmental programs that it administers to oversee the Clean Water Act. However, we found that there are issues with the completeness and accuracy of the data that EPA collects. For example, we found that only 2 of the 17 state programs that EPA reviewed had accurate and complete data. Also, the transition to electronic reporting is ongoing. There have been a number of challenges experienced by states and facilities during this transition. For example, some states have had problems entering facility permit limits into the database. [Holly Hobbs:] And does EPA or the Clean Water Act have goals that they're working towards? [Alfredo Gomez:] Yes. EPA does track and annually report results of its compliance and enforcement activities. For example, EPA sets a goal for pollution reduction that it hopes to achieve through its enforcement. It also periodically selects a set of national initiatives that identify priority areas for its compliance and enforcement programs. One of EPA's current set of initiatives focuses on the Clean Water Act, specifically improving water quality by reducing the rate of significant noncompliance by a subset of permitted facilities. However, we found that inaccurate and incomplete permit limit and facility discharge data makes the results of EPA measures unclear. [Music] [Holly Hobbs:] So it sounds like EPA has made changes to how it monitors and enforces compliance with the Clean Water Act, but that the information EPA collects on compliance is incomplete, which makes tracking progress towards its goals difficult. Alfredo. Do we make any recommendations to EPA to help it improve its oversight and enforcement of the Clean Water Act? [Alfredo Gomez:] Yes, we made several recommendations to EPA to improve data quality and better inform the public and other users of the data about its limitations. So, for example, we recommended that EPA consolidate disclosures about known problems and data limitations on its website and to keep them updated. We also recommended that EPA develop a plan to analyze the overall accuracy of the permit limit and facilitate discharge data in its national database. And we recommended that EPA develop a quantifiable measure for assessing improvements to water quality resulting from increased compliance with the permits. [Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report? [Alfredo Gomez:] The bottom line is that EPA and the states collect a lot of data to oversee and enforce the Clean Water Act. And it's important that that data are complete and accurate. We have made several recommendations to improve the quality of the data. These data are an important part to help EPA ensure that our nation's waters are suitable for fishing, swimming and recreation. [Holly Hobbs:] That was Alfredo Gomez talking about GAO's review of EPA's oversight and enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Thank you for your time, Alfredo. [Alfredo Gomez:] Thank you. [Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google podcasts and more. And make sure you leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.