Updates to ECHO
EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) has recently been updated with some new features that may impact how the public finds drinking water data. A recent addition to the Drinking Water System Search offers users the option to search for public water systems based on whether they’ve had recent sanitary surveys by a government agency. The new search features are in the ‘Enforcement and Compliance’ section of the Drinking Water search form under ‘Sanitary Surveys’. On the search results page, users can add related columns of data (number of sanitary surveys completed in the last five years and number of significant deficiencies found in the last five years) with the Customize Columns button.
Coming soon, you’ll see an updated design for the ECHO home page. The basic organization and feel of the page is the same as it’s always been, but access to ECHO features will be simplified and easier to navigate. The ECHO team also is working on a longer-term update of the State Dashboards, which will be modernized into newer technology. These dashboards don’t work well in some Internet browsers, and the update will correct that problem.
The data made available through ECHO originally comes from state reporting to EPA through the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) and is updated every quarter.