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R e g i o n a l A d m i n i s t r a t o r sPrint As-Is

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Newsroom 

### News Releases By State

U.S. EPA Administrator Jackson Takes New Steps to Improve Water

Quality

Release Date: 07/06/2009

Contact Information: Deb Berlin, berlin.deb@epa.gov, 202-564-4914, 202-564-4355

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made available comprehensive reports and data on water

enforcement in all 50 states. This is part of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s larger effort by to enhance transparency,

promote the public’s right to know about water quality and provide information on EPA’s actions to protect water under the

Clean Water Act.

In a memorandum issued last Thursday, Administrator Ja ckson directed EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance

A ssurance (OECA) to develop an action plan to enhance public transparency regarding clean water enforcement. In the

memo, she also calls for stronger enforcement performance at federal and state levels and a transformation of EPA’s water

quality and compliance information systems.

In keeping with this directive, EPA has posted detailed in formation on the current state of clean water compliance and

enforcement in each state, and copies of the latest clean water enforcement and compliance performance reports for each

state to the agency’s Web site. EPA also launched new Web-ba sed tools to help the public search, assess, and analyze the

data the agency used to help prepare those reports.

These actions are among of several aggressive steps taken by Administrator Jackson to improve the nation’s water quality

by increasing the transparency and effectiveness of the agency’s national Clean Water Act enforcement program.

The administrator’s memo directed the agen cy to take several actions, including:

z Improve and enhance the information available on the EPA website on compliance and enforcement activities in

each state, showing connections to local water quality where possible;

z Provide information in a user-friendly format form that is easily understood and useable by the public;

z Raise the bar for clean water enforcement performance and en sure enforcement is taken against serious violations

that threaten water quality; and

z Improve EPA’s enforcement performance in states where EPA directly implements the clean water program.

A dministrator Jackson directed OECA to work with EPA’s Offi ce of Water and to consult closely with EPA’s 10 regional

offices and the states on the action plan. After obtaining input from other stakeholders, the assistant administrator of OECA,

Cynthia Giles, will report back to Administ rator Jackson in 90 days with recommendations.

More information on the state-by-state reports: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/state/srf/index.html

More information on EPA and state enforcement data:

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/data/results/performance/cwa/index.html

Copy of the administrator’s memorandum:

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/data /results/performance/cwa/jackson

- ltr

- cwa

- enf.html

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