Facility registry system
Encyclopedia
The Facility Registry System (FRS) is a centrally-managed Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) database
that identifies facilities, sites or places of environmental interest in the United States.
master facility records, data collected from the agency's Central Data Exchange registrations and data management personnel. The FRS provides Internet access to a single integrated source of comprehensive environmental regulatory and compliance information about facilities, sites or places. This includes the national air and water pollution programs, solid and hazardous waste handling, and enforcement activities.
The FRS responds to the increasing demand for access to information and the public need for one source of comprehensive environmental information about a given place. Under the major U.S. environmental statutes—the Clean Air Act
, Clean Water Act
, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
, etc.--there was no mandate for the individual EPA programs to pool their data to create complete pictures of a facility's environmental footprint. FRS accomplishes this by matching the various program system records according to address matches into a singe master record.
In 1995, the Risk Management Plans were compiled with the Toxics Release Inventory
Data to create the first version of the Facility Registry System. Since that time, 45 states and 25 programs have been integrated into the FRS.
A new Organizational Query is offered that brings together all facilities under that Organization in one simple query result.
FRS through the Envirofacts Home page ( ww.epa.gov/enviro) offers a geospatial Dwonlaod Service in various GIS file formats to allow greater access to the facility data.
FRS data files can be found at DATA.GOV as well.
process, which uses rooftop and map interpolation methods to derive a latitude and longitude with the appropriate method, accuracy and description (MAD) codes.
used in the water pollution
permit program. In addition to tabular displays, a geospatial
platform is incorporated so the public can view FRS data over the internet.
to reduce the apparent environmental impact of a production facility. One other structural problem is that many environmental programs are delegated to the States further complicating facility interaction at the federal level. These structural problems prevent EPA from having as complete a picture of American pollution as its European counterparts.
Another criticism of the FRS is the limited accuracy of the latitude and longitude data. While FRS has taken many new actions to improve locational values, with 2.1 million facilities which now have a latitude and longitude, it is hard to place them accurately on web maps which are not totally compatible either, such as MS-Bing and Google's Google Earth.
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
(EPA) database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
that identifies facilities, sites or places of environmental interest in the United States.
Overview
FRS creates facility identification records through verification and management procedures that incorporate information from EPA's program-specific national data systems, stateU.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
master facility records, data collected from the agency's Central Data Exchange registrations and data management personnel. The FRS provides Internet access to a single integrated source of comprehensive environmental regulatory and compliance information about facilities, sites or places. This includes the national air and water pollution programs, solid and hazardous waste handling, and enforcement activities.
The FRS responds to the increasing demand for access to information and the public need for one source of comprehensive environmental information about a given place. Under the major U.S. environmental statutes—the Clean Air Act
Clean Air Act
A Clean Air Act is one of a number of pieces of legislation relating to the reduction of airborne contaminants, smog and air pollution in general. The use by governments to enforce clean air standards has contributed to an improvement in human health and longer life spans...
, Clean Water Act
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...
, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act , enacted in 1976, is the principal Federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.-History and Goals:...
, etc.--there was no mandate for the individual EPA programs to pool their data to create complete pictures of a facility's environmental footprint. FRS accomplishes this by matching the various program system records according to address matches into a singe master record.
In 1995, the Risk Management Plans were compiled with the Toxics Release Inventory
Toxics Release Inventory
The Toxics Release Inventory is a publicly available database containing information on toxic chemical releases and other waste management activities in the United States.-Summary of requirements:...
Data to create the first version of the Facility Registry System. Since that time, 45 states and 25 programs have been integrated into the FRS.
A new Organizational Query is offered that brings together all facilities under that Organization in one simple query result.
FRS through the Envirofacts Home page ( ww.epa.gov/enviro) offers a geospatial Dwonlaod Service in various GIS file formats to allow greater access to the facility data.
FRS data files can be found at DATA.GOV as well.
FRS Business Rules
The FRS retrieves key identifiers from program offices. Information includes facility name, address, city, etc. The FRS also ingests any geographic information, such as latitude and longitude. The program system id number is also retrieved and placed in the FRS database. FRS also stores the SIC and NAICS codes for facilities that are collected by the various program and state collections. FRS now offers a complete query result from either a SIC value or NAICS value. FRS further contains the Corporation Name which owns or operates the facility. The information from the various programs are then parsed to remove abbreviations and colloquialisms in order to be compared using a conservative matching algorithm. Matched ids are clustered under a single FRS id, while unmatched ids are given individual ids. Geographic information is stored in a separate Location Reference Table. FRS ids that lack a latitude and longitude are sent through EPA's geocodingGeocoding
Geocoding is the process of finding associated geographic coordinates from other geographic data, such as street addresses, or zip codes...
process, which uses rooftop and map interpolation methods to derive a latitude and longitude with the appropriate method, accuracy and description (MAD) codes.
Accessing the FRS
The FRS is available through an EPA website called the Envirofacts Data Warehouse. Facilities can be queried in tabular format, with active links to program databases that contain regulatory data, such as the Discharge Monitoring ReportDischarge Monitoring Report
A Discharge Monitoring Report is a United States regulatory term for a periodic water pollution report prepared by industries, municipalities and other facilities discharging to surface waters...
used in the water pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
permit program. In addition to tabular displays, a geospatial
Geospatial
Geospatial analysis is an approach to applying statistical analysis and other informational techniques to geographically based data. Such analysis employs spatial software and analytical methods with terrestrial or geographic datasets, including geographic information systems and...
platform is incorporated so the public can view FRS data over the internet.
Criticisms of the FRS
The role the FRS plays in EPA is as an accurate, authoritative facility record. The European model of environmental regulation is for facilities to be assigned a number when the plant created, and all permits are linked to that number. The American system has disparate EPA program offices—Office of Water, Office of Air, etc.--each contributing its separate permit information to a central system, which has to match based on the business rules outlined above. Further complicating the issue, many programs use self-reported information, which encourages gaming the systemGaming the system
Gaming the system can be defined as "[using] the rules and procedures meant to protect a system in order, instead, to manipulate the system for [a] desired outcome".According to James Rieley, structures in organizations Gaming the system (or bending the rules, playing the system, abusing the...
to reduce the apparent environmental impact of a production facility. One other structural problem is that many environmental programs are delegated to the States further complicating facility interaction at the federal level. These structural problems prevent EPA from having as complete a picture of American pollution as its European counterparts.
Another criticism of the FRS is the limited accuracy of the latitude and longitude data. While FRS has taken many new actions to improve locational values, with 2.1 million facilities which now have a latitude and longitude, it is hard to place them accurately on web maps which are not totally compatible either, such as MS-Bing and Google's Google Earth.