by Jbs122609 b3 — December 28, 2009—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released enforcement results for fiscal year 2009, and has developed a new Web-based tool and interactive map that allows the public to get detailed information by location about the enforcement actions taken at approximately 4,600 facilities.
In FY2009, EPA concluded enforcement actions requiring polluters to invest more than $5 billion on pollution controls, cleanup, and environmental projects. Civil and criminal defendants committed to install controls and take other measures to reduce pollution by approximately 580 million pounds annually once all required controls are fully implemented.
The new mapping tool allows the public to view the locations of facilities that were the subject of those enforcement actions on interactive maps of the U.S. and territories. The maps show facilities where civil enforcement actions were taken for environmental laws for air, water and land pollution, and a separate map shows criminal enforcement actions. Viewers can click on specific facilities to find historical information about specific enforcement actions.
For the past 10 years, EPA has described annual enforcement results by focusing on the estimated pounds of pollutants reduced and the estimated cost of commitments made by defendants to control or reduce pollution. These measures vary significantly depending on the number of large cases that settle in a given year. EPA says the new mapping tool will help improve access to data and provide the public with the bigger picture of annual enforcement activity occurring in communities around the country.
