Water Pollution Monitoring:

EPA's Permit Compliance System Could Be Used More Effectively

IMTEC-92-58BR: Published: Jun 22, 1992. Publicly Released: Jun 22, 1992.

Additional Materials:

Contact:

Office of Public Affairs
(202) 512-4800
youngc1@gao.gov

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Permit Compliance System's (PCS) capabilities; (2) EPA assessments of any alternative technologies to the existing data entry process; (3) the total number of facilities listed in PCS with detailed data; (4) resource expenditures for data entry on minor facilities; and (5) approximate PCS operating costs.

GAO found that: (1) PCS enables EPA to monitor and track compliance of permitted National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) facilities; (2) PCS is not fully utilized by all states because it is not user-friendly; (3) of the 64,227 NPDES facilities, 7,139 major facilities and 21,187 minor facilities currently utilize PCS for detailed data entry; (4) EPA is currently considering such new technologies such as optical character recognition and electronic data interchange to facilitate more efficient data entry, but needs to perform cost-benefit analyses and compare these technologies with alternative systems; (5) currently 76 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees are required to enter detailed data for the 21,187 minor facilities, with an estimated 109 FTE needed to enter data for the remaining facilities; and (6) operating costs for PCS in fiscal year 1991, including state data entry costs, totalled about $5.9 million.

Sep 26, 2018

Sep 21, 2018

Sep 14, 2018

Sep 5, 2018

Aug 24, 2018

Aug 16, 2018

Jul 19, 2018

Jul 17, 2018

Jul 12, 2018

Jun 19, 2018

Looking for more? Browse all our products here