EPA’s Drinking Water Enforcement Response Policy and Enforcement Targeting Tool

Under its 2009 Drinking Water Enforcement Response Policy, EPA is to  identify water systems with the most serious compliance problems and  direct enforcement resources to these systems. SDWIS Data from States Did Not Reliably Reflect Community Water Systems’ Violations of SDWA or the Status of Enforcement Actions

The data that states provided to EPA did not reliably reflect the frequency  of community water systems’ violations of SDWA’s health-based  standards, according to our analysis of EPA’s audit data for 2007 and 2009  and past EPA audit reports. Officials identified several  factors, such as inadequate training, staffing, and guidance, as contributing  to errors in data on violations and enforcement. For example, we estimate that the 14 states audited in 2009 did  not report or inaccurately reported about 54,600—or 84 percent—of the  monitoring violations committed by community water systems to  SDWIS/Fed. EPA and State Officials Indicated That Violation and Enforcement Data Are Unreliable for Several Reasons

EPA and state officials responding to our survey or in interviews cited  several factors as contributing to inaccuracies in SDWIS/Fed data on  health-based and monitoring violations and the status of enforcement. Incomplete and Inaccurate Data on Violations and Enforcement Actions Reduce EPA’s Ability to Ensure Its Enforcement Goals Are Met

Incomplete and inaccurate data on violations and enforcement actions  reduce EPA’s ability to ensure that it is achieving its goal of targeting for  enforcement those systems with the most serious compliance problems. Unreported Violations and Enforcement Data Impede EPA’s Ability to Monitor and Report Progress Toward Its Strategic Objective of Reducing Exposure to Contaminants in Drinking Water

Unreported violations and enforcement data impede EPA’s ability to fully  measure and communicate its progress toward meeting the strategic  objective of reducing human exposure to contaminants in drinking water. For example:    EPA’s 2011 national water program guidance contains an indicator for  the number and percentage of systems serving less than 10,000 people  with certain repeated health-based violations. However, the ability to set and reliably use an indicator of  this type requires complete and accurate data on enforcement actions. Actions EPA and States Are Taking to Improve the Quality of Data in SDWIS Have Not Been Fully Successful and More Actions Are Planned

EPA and the states have taken actions over many years to identify and  address the causes of incomplete and inaccurate violations data, but those  efforts have not been fully successful, according to those we surveyed. Survey respondents generally reported that those audits have contributed  to improvement, but EPA has discontinued them. EPA and the states also  established work groups to address data management and quality. The director also requested comments from the regions’ water  management directors on four proposed measures that would assist the  office in monitoring the regions’ oversight of the states’ performance,  including several directly related to the steps discussed above:  the percentage of states within a region with which the region has an  annual discussion regarding data quality;  the percentage of states that have an action plan to correct deficiencies  relating to drinking water compliance determinations or data reporting  that were noted in the most recent EPA data verification audit;  the percentage of a region’s annual PWSS grants that include grant  conditions requiring the states to make compliance determinations that  are consistent with drinking water regulations; and  the extent to which a region is achieving EPA’s goal that 90 percent of  health-based violations are completely and accurately reported to  SDWIS/Fed, when a region is acting as the primacy authority for a  particular rule in a state. Conducting fewer audits of state- reported data—both violations and enforcement data—will hamper the  effectiveness of EPA’s oversight of the states and its ability to assess its  efforts to improve data quality. Recommendations for Executive Action

To improve EPA’s ability to oversee the states’ implementation of the Safe  Drinking Water Act and provide Congress and the public with more  complete and accurate information on compliance, we recommend that  the Administrator of EPA take the following four actions:    Resume data verification audits to routinely evaluate the quality of  selected drinking water data on health-based and monitoring violations  that the states provide to EPA. EPA partially agreed with two of our recommendations, disagreed with  one, and neither agreed nor disagreed with another. EPA noted that it has implemented a  number of activities to improve data quality and its ability to oversee the  drinking water program. Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To examine the quality of the Safe Drinking Water Information  System/Federal (SDWIS/Fed) data that the Environmental Protection  Agency (EPA) uses to measure community water systems’ compliance  with the health-based and monitoring requirements in the Safe Drinking  Water Act (SDWA), we examined the results of audits EPA conducted  from 1996 through 2009 in which it assessed—for a sample of states—the  completeness and accuracy of violations data those states submitted to  SDWIS/Fed. We also  examined survey respondents’ views on steps that EPA and the states  could take to address data quality—including the adoption of particular  data management tools—and ways in which the three EPA-state work  groups could be more effective.
Why GAO Did This Study

The nation's drinking water is among the safest in the world, but contamination has occurred, causing illnesses and even deaths. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has authorized most states, territories, and tribes to take primary responsibility for ensuring that community water systems provide safe water. EPA needs complete and accurate data on systems' compliance with SDWA to conduct oversight. GAO was asked to assess the (1) quality of the state data EPA uses to measure compliance with health and monitoring requirements of the act and the status of enforcement efforts, (2) ways in which data quality could affect EPA's management of the drinking water program, and (3) actions EPA and the states have been taking to improve data quality. GAO analyzed EPA audits of state data done in 2007, 2008, and 2009, and surveyed EPA and state officials to obtain their views on factors that have affected data quality and steps that could improve it.

What GAO Found

The data states reported to EPA for measuring compliance with health and monitoring requirements of SDWA did not reliably reflect the number of health-based and monitoring violations that community water systems have committed or the status of enforcement actions. Using data from the 14 states EPA audited in 2009, GAO estimates that those 14 states did not report or inaccurately reported 26 percent of the health-based violations that should have been reported and 84 percent of the monitoring violations that should have been reported. GAO's findings were consistent with the results of prior EPA audits. In addition, according to EPA headquarters and regional officials GAO interviewed and surveyed, state-reported data underreported the percentage of water systems with violations against which the states have taken enforcement actions. Survey respondents and other officials reported that numerous factors contribute to errors in reported data on violations and enforcement, including inadequate training, staffing, and guidance, and inadequate funding to conduct those activities. Unreported health-based and monitoring violations and incomplete enforcement data limit EPA's ability to identify water systems with the most serious compliance problems and ensure that it is achieving its goal of targeting for enforcement those systems with the most serious compliance problems. Specifically, incomplete and inaccurate data on both violations and enforcement actions affect a scoring tool EPA and the states are using to rank systems for enforcement actions. In addition, unreliable data quality impedes EPA's ability to monitor and report progress toward a strategic objective of reducing exposure to contaminants in drinking water. For example, EPA's 2011 national program guidance contains a performance measure for the number and percentage of systems with certain repeated health-based violations, but EPA's ability to reliably use this type of measure requires complete and accurate data on violations. Because of unreported violations data, EPA may not be able to report accurate performance information on systems with these violations. EPA and the states have collaborated over many years to identify and address the causes of incomplete and inaccurate violations data, but those efforts have not been fully successful, according to EPA and state officials GAO surveyed. EPA's efforts have included (1) conducting audits--discontinued in 2010 because of funding constraints--to determine the completeness and accuracy of the violations data states reported to EPA, (2) establishing three work groups to address data management and quality, and (3) urging EPA regions and states to use data management tools the agency has developed. However, EPA has encouraged but not required that its regions or the states take specific actions that could improve data quality. EPA's 2010 drinking water strategy calls for, among other things, an increase in shared data between the agency and the states. EPA also plans to redesign its drinking water data system to provide it with greater access to, and oversight of, the states' determinations of SDWA violations.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making recommendations to improve EPA's ability to oversee the states' implementation of SDWA and provide Congress and the public with more complete and accurate data on compliance and enforcement. EPA partially agreed with two of the recommendations, disagreed with one, and neither agreed nor disagreed with one. GAO believes that EPA needs to implement all of the recommendations to improve its ability to oversee SDWA.