Benefits of ICIS-NPDES for States

August 27, 2007

General Benefit to Everyone Using ICIS-NPDES

  • ICIS-NPDES direct entry, hybrid and batch capabilities are standardized across the system: Reports, screens, and XML file parsingutilize the same software and hardware infrastructure. This standardization incorporates current program and EPA development standards with the newest technology available. ICIS-NPDES has also been developed to incorporate future program requirementsseamlessly.

Direct and Hybrid State Users

Budget

  • EPA pays all development, operation and maintenance costs for ICIS, including hardware, software licensing, security and data back up, as well as development of the ICIS application. EPA also provides initial and periodic training on ICIS, along with email and phone support for ICIS. Thus, states avoid all these costs and hassles. From a taxpayer’s perspective, this is much more efficient than each state developing and maintaining their own computerized NPDES information tracking system.
  • States do not have to develop and maintain software and procedures for exchanging data from their own systems with ICIS-NPDES. While ICIS-NPDES is being developed to minimize these costs for full batch states, there are still some costs here.
  • EPA provides monetary assistance through two grant programs (OECA Exchange Network Grants and OEIState and Tribal Assistance Grants) to assist states with improving their NPDES information management. States moving from PCS to ICIS-NPDES particularly benefit from these grants.

Usability – Enhanced Function, Features and Capabilities

  • Data is real-time
  • Modern, Internet-based system with drop down menus

Easily supports telecommuting

No specialized terminals, hardware or software is needed

  • Supports decentralized data entry by spreading out the workload
  • Usesplain English instead of cryptic codes or acronyms, resulting in making training much easier and the learning curve significantly faster
  • Supports the full NPDES program, including:

Special regulatory programs (e.g. CSO/SSO, Stormwater, CAFOs)

General permits (master permits, covered facilities)

Effluent trading

  • Tracks all environmental interests associated with a facility
  • Tracks all aspects of a permit such as tracking events, effluent data, narrative conditions, permit conditionsand permit history
  • Tracks all inspections, violations and enforcement actions associated with a permitted facility.
  • Other helpful, powerful and cool features

Re-use of identical codes with different dates for permit tracking events, permit and compliance schedules, and single event violations

Ability to copymaster general permit information to its covered facility permits, resulting in reduced data entry

Automatic tracking of permit lifecycle events such as effective, expired, administratively continued, and terminated

Associates many different contacts with a permit and maintainsa history of each contact

Broadened search capabilities

  • Ability to use the NetDMR tool and obtain all its benefits with minimum state investment. NetDMR will enable NPDES permittees to electronically sign and submit their DMRs to ICIS-NPDES fully consistent with EPA’s electronic signature rule (CROMERR). This will reduce the amount of manual DMR data entry by states and give the states access to more DMR data at a lower cost.

EPA expects 20 states will use the NetDMR tool as a component of ICIS-NPDES and CDX. With 50% of the permittees in these states using NetDMR to electronically sign and submit their DMRs, EPA estimates annual savings to industry of $11 million and more than $1 million to states and EPA. This will result in higher quality and more complete data, which will enable state and EPA to improve NPDES program performance. States that use NetDMR will also save an average of $250,000 in avoided system development costs, and $200,000 in annual system operation and maintenance.

The savings could be greater as a higher percentage of permittees use NetDMR. Further, EPA expects a total of 38 state will adopt NetDMR in some form, which would save almost $10 million in avoided development costs, $7 million in annual system O&M, more than $2 million annually in efficiencies, and tens of millions more for industry.

Full Batch States

Budget and Usability – Enhanced Function, Features and Capabilities

  • Much of the budget savings are in reduced staff time required for:

double data entry

transferring data

reviewing error reports

Better correspondswith modernized state systems. Synchronization between state and ICIS-NPDES systems will result in:

better data quality

system flexibility

cleaner data transfer with a minimum of a one day turnaround

sharing of state data

Flat file data transfer states benefit from:

EPA Grants available to help map data from a state’s systemto the ICIS-NPDES Schema

Assistance with XML development available through EPA’s Exchange Network and the ICIS-NPDES Modernization Team

the use of XML technology that enables cleaner and faster data transfer

Meaningful and accurate transfer of data using XML metadata

IDEF data transfer states benefit from:

Fully automated error trapping and reporting capabilities that reduce the amount of time to identify and fix rejected data

Using schema that are more in line with EPA’s XML standards

Double data entry States benefit from:

Schema that fully support the NPDES program and are flexible enough to be modified as needed to keep pace when program changes occur

More accurate reporting of what is in State systems and how they are managing their program, that can eliminate or significantly reduce Double data entry

An EPA system that is structured more like TEMPO

Usability – ICIS-NPDES Reports

  • All states have access to powerful and flexible data reporting of state and Federal NPDES data:
  • RNC/SNC and QNCR are calculated for you

Particularly Effluent RNC which is very complicated

Consistent measures are used across all states

  • More flexibility with

Violations can be reported at the parameter level

FOIA and other external or management requests can be better fulfilled

Updated Crystal Reports-based reporting tool for standard and ad hoc retrievals

Potential to use common National standard reports with logic tested by others

State NPDES data can be combined with Federal inspection and enforcement action data without leaving ICIS-NPDES

Ability to transfer report results to e-mail accounts and CDX nodes using Web Services

 Can create reports in PDF, comma delimited or XML format

Sharing of ad hoc reports with other users, resulting in shorter report creation time

Personal ad hoc reports can be scheduled by each user to run on a regular basis

Usability – OTIS/ECHO Reports

  • Direct / Hybrid / and Batch users
  • Data goes into OTIS/ECHO which provides States and Public access to valuable and easy reporting tools:
  • State mapping capabilities
  • Full Watershed view
  • Water Quality Reports
  • Effluent Reports in which ICIS NPDES data can be integrated and supplemented with other data sets, such as TRI, Census, and Geographic.

  • State Benefits of Net DMR

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