About the Data

Every facility gets a normalized status: "in_violation", "no_violation", or "unknown" — regardless of which program flagged it.

Program-specific violation flags (HPV, SNC, FRV) are mapped to three tiers: HIGH, SIGNIFICANT, and MINOR across all programs.

A computed 0–100 score based on violation recency, frequency, penalty severity, active violations, and inspection gaps.

Latitude and longitude are indexed as PostGIS geography points, enabling radius and bounding-box facility searches.

Facilities are unified by FRS ID (Facility Registry Service), so a single facility query returns data across all four programs.

Dates, currency amounts, ZIP codes, and industry codes are all parsed into proper types — no more dollar signs in strings or dates in three different formats.

EPA does not track compliance status for all facilities. Smaller facilities, certain program types, and facilities that have never been inspected may show an “unknown” compliance status. This does not mean the facility is non-compliant — it means EPA has no compliance determination on record.

EPA's penalty data does not include a specific penalty assessment date. Parley derives the penalty date from the associated enforcement case's settlement or filing date. This is the closest available approximation but may not reflect the exact date the penalty was assessed.

EPA records violations using program-specific codes and flags (HPV, SNC, FRV) that differ across the four environmental programs. Parley maps these to a unified three-tier scale (HIGH, SIGNIFICANT, MINOR) using documented EPA definitions. The original program-specific flags are preserved in the source data.

A small number of facilities in EPA's database do not have latitude/longitude data. These facilities are searchable by name, state, and FRS ID, but will not appear in geospatial (radius or bounding box) queries.

ECHO data depends on self-reporting by facilities and inspection activity by EPA and state agencies. Facilities that are rarely inspected may appear compliant simply due to lack of oversight. The compliance score accounts for inspection gaps, but the underlying data is only as complete as EPA's records.

Some enforcement cases in EPA's records lack a status or outcome description, particularly older cases or cases still in progress. These will appear without a status badge in API responses.