EPA ECHO — Enforcement and Compliance History

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO). Facility-level compliance status, inspection history, formal and informal enforcement actions, permit data (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, RCRA, etc.). The authoritative source for "is this facility in trouble with EPA?" Free, no auth.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1476+ live data sources.

Why this matters for AI agents

For environmental risk assessment, regulatory due diligence, and ESG analysis, EPA ECHO is the primary source for what's actually happening with EPA enforcement. Self-reported emissions data is one thing; ECHO tells you when the EPA actually showed up and took action.

Common flows:

Facility lookup. "Find facilities for company X." → echo_facility_search({name: "X"}) → matching facilities with their EPA Registry IDs, compliance status, recent enforcement.
Facility detail. Once you have a facility ID, follow-up tools surface inspection history, permits, violations, formal actions.
Geographic search. Find all facilities in a ZIP code, county, or state with active enforcement.

Used by the environmental_risk recipe alongside GHG emissions and TRI data.

Auth

None. ECHO is fully public and free. Pipeworx forwards a polite User-Agent.

What EPA tracks via ECHO

Program	What it covers
CAA (Clean Air Act)	Major emitters, NSPS standards, NESHAP toxic air pollutants
CWA / NPDES	Water discharge permits, effluent limits, biosolids
RCRA	Hazardous waste generators, transporters, treatment/storage/disposal facilities
SDWA	Public water systems
TRI	Toxic Release Inventory reporters (separate `tri_facility_releases` tool)

A single facility can be regulated under multiple programs; ECHO surfaces all.

Compliance status decoded

Status	Meaning
In compliance	No active violations
Significant Violator	Major program-level violation
High Priority Violator (HPV)	Air-program-specific severe non-compliance
Formal action issued	EPA or state has filed a legal action
Informal action	Warning letter, notice of violation
Active enforcement	An enforcement case is open

For risk-tier assessment, "Significant Violator" + "Active enforcement" is High; clean record + closed historical violations is Low.

Common pitfalls

Multi-facility companies. Big companies have many EPA-regulated facilities; the company-name search returns all matches. Cluster by parent company in your output, not by facility.
State-delegated programs. Most EPA programs are administered by state environmental agencies. ECHO has the data but enforcement-action attribution can name the state, not EPA.
Permit ≠ enforcement. A facility holding a Clean Air Act Title V permit isn't "in trouble" — most major emitters need them. Distinguish permits (operating authorization) from enforcement (regulatory action).
Lag. ECHO updates monthly; settlements and recent inspections may not appear for 30–60 days.
Self-reported data. Compliance status often derives from self-reported monitoring data. The most damning enforcement signal is usually formal action, not raw violation counts.
Closed facilities. Decommissioned facilities still appear in ECHO with historical records. Filter to "Active" facility status for current operations only.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "epa-echo": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/epa-echo/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/epa-echo/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1476+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Epa Echo data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

License

MIT

Epa Echo