How does ECHO differ from other data on the EPA Web sites?
ECHO has two unique features that are not found on other EPA Web sites the ability to integrate information in a way that allows users to perform analysis, and the provision of data regarding inspections, violations, and enforcement actions. Other EPA Web sites specialize in searching individual data sets (e.g., searching for Toxics Release Inventory data). These specialized search engines often provide more detail about particular subject areas, but do not bring information together across systems on a facility-level basis. EPA does maintain the EnviroFacts system that allows cross program searching, but it doesn t integrate the data. There are many differences between ECHO and EnviroFacts. Primarily, EnviroFacts is geared toward geographic and sector searches for a wide range of facility location, permit, and pollutant release information. The ECHO site is specialized toward compliance and enforcement data and provides additional analytic functions that allow users to combine polluta
