Air Enforcement and Compliance
New York's enforcement program is based in the nine regional offices with support and guidance provided by the Central Office. Federal policy requires states to maintain lists of sources subject to federal Clean Air Act requirements as well as dates and results of certain compliance activities including all High Priority Violations as defined by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy. New York uses its Air Facility System (AFS) for tracking the compliance of air pollution sources, and for developing permits which provide facilities authority to operate.
A facility's compliance with permit requirements and air regulations is tracked in AFS, including inspections, full compliance evaluations, compliance certifications, stack tests, as well as any notices of violations and subsequent enforcement cases. Compliance and enforcement activities are tracked nationally in the EPA-Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS) database. Data required to be reported to the EPA-AIRS system are periodically downloaded from the New York AFS system into batch files which are uploaded to AIRS. EPA then creates an overview of the information on the Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) website. According to EPA, the ECHO website "integrates current compliance and inspection data under air, water, and hazardous waste programs, as well as demographic data of the surrounding area into a format that is easy to use and understand."
