Facility Search Help

Key Links

ECHO Video Tutorials  Facility Search Tutorial

ECHO facility searches query a database of hundreds of thousands of facility records to find those in which you're interested. Each media program has search options and search results that are tailored toward the way facilities are regulated under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for hazardous waste, and Safe Drinking Water Act. In addition, results returned for the facility search include federal enforcement actions taken under the relevant statute which are tracked in EPA's ICIS database. Read Facility Search - Media Programs and About the Data to learn more about the types of searches you can run and the data included in ECHO. See the Facility Search Criteria Help page for detailed descriptions of each search term. 

You can locate facilities of interest in ECHO in one of two ways, each of which is described in detail below:

  1. Start with a Map
  2. Start with the Search Form

Both options take you to the same interactive search results display where you can analyze data.

 Start with a Map

Select Search Options from the ECHO home page. Four options from which to choose are presented -- based on the primary media programs available within ECHO:

  • Map Any Facilities with Enforcement and Compliance Data
  • Map Air Facilities
  • Map Wastewater/Stormwater/Biosolids Facilities
  • Map Hazardous Waste Facilities

Note: Drinking water systems are not mapped in ECHO. Use the ECHO search form to search for drinking water systems.

Click the link correlating to the map of interest. ECHO will return a national map of facilities within the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Aggregated data are initially presented. You can use interactive components to drill-down to more detailed data. Read more about the interactive Facility Search Results page.

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 Start with the Search Form

Select Search Options from the ECHO home page to conduct a targeted search to identify facilities and download data based on detailed search criteria. ECHO provides powerful search capabilities offering many search criteria to target your results. Related ECHO search criteria are organized into categories, and you can control how many search options are shown by switching from a limited set of search options to the full set by clicking "View More Search Options" (or "View Fewer Search Options", as applicable) just above the search form.

Search Tips

  • You need only to specify the search terms that are of most interest to you
  • Keep track of your chosen search criteria in the Search Criteria Selected area
  • If your search returns a large number of facilities, you can narrow your search by specifying additional facility characteristics or program criteria

 Specify Search Criteria

ECHO is designed to simplify your search experience. A subset of the most common search criteria is displayed by default, but the option to see advanced search criteria in a category is only one click away – just click the “View Search More Options” link above the search form or click the "View More" link at the top left of any category. Advanced search options are shown on the search form with a Advanced/Government Search Icon icon. Advanced search options are automatically displayed if you are a government user (ECHO Gov) or you arrive at the search page by the Advanced Facility Search link.

Expand or collapse the categories by clicking the corresponding arrow or using the “Expand All” or “Collapse All” links above the search form.

The Facility Search - Media Programs page describes each search available within ECHO, including the data source upon which the search results are based. The Facility Search Criteria Help and NPDES Program Area Search Criteria Help pages provide detailed descriptions of each search term by category or alphabetized by term.

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 Search Criteria Selected

ECHO keeps track of selected search criteria on the right side of the page. Search terms are listed in the Search Criteria Selected panel after you complete them on the left. The search criteria are organized by the same categories and only appear once they are completed. Click the X to easily delete a search term from your search. If you decide to start over you can click the "Clear All" link to reset your search.

ECHO provides two formats to view results:

  1. Interactive Map - Aggregated data are initially presented, with no limitation on the number of facilities returned. Facility-level data are presented once 500 or fewer facilities are identified by using interactive page features (e.g., zoom in on the map, select a state, county or zip code from the data table, or apply enforcement and compliance criteria directly from the search results page).
  2. Data Table - Results are limited to 100,000 or fewer records. 500 rows of data are presented in the data table at a time. Use the pagination controls, column sorting, and/or apply enforcement and compliance criteria directly from the search results page to interact with the data. Click Download Data to export results from ECHO.

Click Search to retrieve your results. You can customize which data are displayed on the search results page by clicking Customize Columns after the results load. Read more about the interactive Facility Search Results page.

Note: Searches that return a large number of facilities may load slowly. A loading indicator provides a visual indication that ECHO is retrieving results. For the Data Table view, a warning message appears if your search results exceed 100,000 facilities.