DEP believes that it is vital for citizens to be informed about environmental issues in their communities, especially those issues that are of significant local interest and impact over an extended period of time. It is the purpose of the Community Involvement section to make information about major environmental issues within the five counties of southeastern Pennsylvania conveniently located and accessible to all residents.
Pennsylvania’s Environment Facility Application Compliance Tracking System (eFACTS)
eFACTS allows individuals to search for authorizations, clients, sites and facilities. Users can also search the database to find inspection and pollution prevention visits as well as inspection results data, including enforcement information when violations are noted. DEP has also provided a name search to use when it is not known if the entity is a client, site or facility. eFACTS contains DEP compliance information only.
Permit Application Consultation Tool (PACT):
PACT is intended for potential applicants who are considering siting a new project in Pennsylvania or expanding or relocating an existing operation. It allows potential applicants to quickly and easily determine which types of environmental permits, authorizations or notifications may be required for specific projects. The tool guides the user through a series of simple questions and provides information on permits, authorizations, or notifications that an applicant should consider. When submitted to DEP, the tool may serve as the foundation for a Pre-Application Conference/Meeting to discuss and verify tool results and permit coordination. Such meetings often result in significant savings of both time and resources especially when multiple permits or authorizations are needed.
PennEnviroScreen Tool:
The Pennsylvania Environmental Justice Mapping and Screening Tool (PennEnviroScreen) is linked below. The state-of-the-art mapping tool will allow DEP to more accurately identify communities facing environmental justice issues using 32 environmental, health, and socioeconomic indicators.
This tool will define EJ areas under the new EJ policy and will also show the EJ areas that have been identified under the old policy for permits and grant applications under review that are applicable to the 2004 mapping. If a DEP permit applicant plans to file a permit application on or after September 16, the applicant must use the new PennEnviroScreen tool to determine if the permit’s facility is in an environmental justice area. If a grant application is submitted in response to a grant application package published after September 16, then these EJ areas will apply.
DEP is developing videos to help introduce the PennEnviroScreen tool. The PennEnviroScreen methodology document provides detail on the tool, targeted toward academics and researchers.