Rural Community Assistance Partnership

Practical solutions for improving rural communities
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New tool provides access to water-pollution data

EPA announced the release of a new tool that provides the public with important information about pollutants that are released into local waterways.  The discharge monitoring report pollutant loading tool brings together millions of records and allows for easy searching and mapping of water pollution by local area, watershed, company, industry sector and pollutant.  The public can use this new tool to protect their health and the health of their communities.

New data added to EPA’s nitrogen and phosphorus pollution data access tool

EPA has added updated U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) data to the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution data access tool, a tool intended to help states develop effective nitrogen and phosphorus source reduction strategies. SPARROW is a GIS-based watershed model that integrates statistical and mechanistic modeling approaches to simulate long-term mean annual stream nutrient loads as a function of a wide range of known sources and factors affecting nutrient fate and transport.

EPA releases searchable website for drinking water violations

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced improvements to the availability and usability of drinking water data in the Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) tool. ECHO now allows the public to search to see whether drinking water in their community met the standards required under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), which is designed to safeguard the nation’s drinking water and protect people’s health. SDWA requires states to report drinking water information periodically to EPA.