Learn about the Environmental Compliance data in Transect.
Transect simplifies the process of understanding environmental regulations, allowing developers to quickly identify and visualize environmental regulations applicable to their project areas to streamline the compliance process.
The Environmental Compliance information provided by Transect is intended to give the user a preliminary understanding of potential environmental contamination issues that may affect a project's economics, placement, or scheduling. This information should not be relied upon for environmental compliance due diligence and does not replace a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment.
In this article, we’ll review:
- Federal Compliance Records
- Environmental Compliance Data in Map Layers
- Environmental Compliance Data in Reports
Federal Compliance Records
When ordering a Transect Report, the EPA's Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) dataset is the primary data source for environmental compliance. This is a collection of state, local, and tribal environmental agency compliance and enforcement records reported in EPA national databases. Some of the detailed information provided includes:
- Permit data
- Inspection/compliance evaluation dates and findings
- Violations of environmental regulations
- Enforcement actions
- Penalties assessed
Environmental Compliance Map Layers
You can use the following Map Layers for a preliminary snapshot of an area’s environmental risks:
- Active mines and mineral plants in the US
- Brownfield, Superfund, and Landfill Sites
- Coal Mines
Within the Map, you can also use the Parcel Filter to locate areas that are within energy communities or cleanup sites:
Environmental Compliance Data in a Report
The Environmental Compliance information within a Transect Report provides a preliminary understanding of potential environmental contamination or compliance issues that may affect the economics, placement, or scheduling of a project. After running a Transect Report, the Environmental Compliance catalog will display results from state or local datasets, where available, related to environmental compliance issues.
The Executive Summary will indicate an area’s concern level with regards to Environmental Compliance and also provide relevant considerations. For more information, click Learn More.
You will see a concern level based on the following information:
- High Concern: The concern level will only be high if it is overridden by a user or admin. You can learn more about overrides in this article.
- Moderate Concern: The concern level will be moderate if the project area intersects any environmental catalog location areas, federal facilities with formal actions areas, federal facilities with penalties areas, federal facilities with violations areas, or Federal facilities with resource conservation and recovery acts areas.
- Low Concern: The concern level will be low if the project area does not intersect with any environmental catalog location areas, federal facilities with formal actions areas, federal facilities with penalties areas, federal facilities with violations areas, or federal facilities with resource conservation and recovery acts areas.
When selecting Learn More, you’ll be routed to the Environmental Compliance data page. You can also access this page by selecting Environmental Compliance on the left toolbar. This page provides detailed information about the reported facilities in the area with the link to the EPA facility report.
Under Environmental Compliance, you can select the Catalog to view items within the AOI. The Searched Catalog Items provides the source data for the information found within the Report.
