Pennsylvania NPDES permit search
Status, expiry and violations for 790 municipal wastewater permits · issued by PA DEP
In short
How do I look up an NPDES permit in Pennsylvania?
Search this page by permit number or plant name for a municipal plant’s permit status, expiry date and violations. For the official file, search eFACTS or DEP’s permit documents report. EPA’s ECHO database shows the monitoring results and violations of every permit. The 6,102 industrial permits in Pennsylvania are listed in Klarifi with a free account.
Links to official sources checked September 2026.
Effective
650
Administratively continued
26
Expired
113
Plants with effluent violations, 3 years
640
Where to find official Pennsylvania NPDES records
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) runs the NPDES program in Pennsylvania under authorization from EPA Region 3. It issues and enforces the permits and keeps the official file: applications, permits, fact sheets and monitoring reports. PA DEP website ↗
permits · applications · inspections · violations · enforcement
DEP’s Environment Facility Application Compliance Tracking System. Choose Authorization Search and enter the NPDES permit number; Inspection Search shows inspections, violations and enforcement.
permit documents
Untick NULL next to Permit Number, type the number and click View Report for PDF copies of the permit.
DMRs
Enter the permit number (untick NULL) and a date range and click View Report for the monitoring data filed through eDMR.
permits · DMRs · inspections · violations · enforcement
EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online. Search water facilities by permit number, name or city; the Detailed Facility Report lists inspections, violations and enforcement actions, and Effluent Charts plot monitoring results against the permit limits.
- Permit numbers
- DEP numbers individual permits with the prefixes PA0 or PAI and general permits PAG (PAG-03, PAG-13).
- Discharge monitoring reports
- Through DEP’s own eDMR in Keystone GreenPort; the data is public in the eDMR report.
- Violations and enforcement
- DEP’s wastewater inspection, violation and enforcement reports ↗
Industrial and commercial NPDES permits in Pennsylvania
Most NPDES permits are not held by municipal plants. EPA’s permit database lists 6,102 individual permits in force for industrial and commercial facilities in Pennsylvania (manufacturers, food processors, mines, power plants, landfills), 183 of them major dischargers, plus 5,300 facilities covered by a general permit, mostly for stormwater. 1,113 of the individual permits recorded at least one effluent violation in the last three years.
| Facility | Permit | Status | Expires | Effluent violations |
|---|
Unlock 6,102 industrial permits in Pennsylvania
Search every industrial and commercial discharger in Pennsylvania by name or permit number, with permit status, expiry and violation history. Free with a Klarifi account.
Industrial and commercial NPDES permits in Pennsylvania: permits in force (effective or administratively continued) held by facilities EPA does not class as publicly owned treatment works or federal facilities. Source: EPA ICIS-NPDES via Klarifi, October 2026.
Violations at Pennsylvania wastewater plants
640 of the 790 municipal plants on this page recorded at least one effluent violation, a monitored value above a permit limit, in the last three years, and 656 had a violation of any kind, including late or missing monitoring reports. Each plant’s page shows its own count. EPA’s enforcement records list 105 formal cases naming Pennsylvania wastewater plants, 16 of them since fiscal year 2020, with $7.9 million in penalties assessed. Enforcement cases in Pennsylvania →
Permit renewals by year
An NPDES permit runs for five years. To keep discharging, a plant must apply for renewal at least 180 days before the expiry date, and the renewed permit usually arrives with tighter effluent limits, new monitoring requirements or a compliance schedule. That is why the year a permit expires is the year a plant starts budgeting for upgrades: nutrient removal, disinfection, capacity or controls.
2029: 121 permits
2030: 240 permits
2031: 82 permits
Largest permit holders in Pennsylvania
| Facility | City | Avg flow (MGD) | Design (MGD) | NPDES permit | Status | Expires | Violations (3y) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast WPCP | Philadelphia | 153.22 | — | PAL026689 | Effective | Dec 2030 | 0 |
| Phila Water Dept - SE STP | Philadelphia | 86 | — | PAL026662 | Effective | Dec 2030 | 1 |
| City Of Erie, Pa - Wastewater Treatment Plant | Erie | 44.59 | — | PAL026301 | Effective | Dec 2030 | 1 |
| Delcora-Western Regional Treatment Plant | Chester | 30.48 | 44 | PA0027103 | Expired | Mar 2026 | 18 |
| City Of Allentown Wastewater Treatment Plant | Allentown | 31.66 | 40 | PA0026000 | Terminated | Sep 2007 | 0 |
| City Of Bethlehem Wastewater Treatment Plant | Bethlehem | 10.23 | 40 | PA0026042 | Effective | May 2031 | 18 |
| Reading STP | Reading | 14.02 | 20.5 | PA0026549 | Effective | Apr 2028 | 9 |
| Hanover Boro STP | Mcsherrystown | 4 | 17.6 | PA0026875 | Effective | Dec 2027 | 2 |
| Harrisburg Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility | Harrisburg | 17.17 | — | PAL027197 | Effective | Dec 2030 | 4 |
| Oaks WWTP (lower Perkiomen Valley) | Oaks | 6.7 | 14.25 | PA0026964 | Effective | Nov 2030 | 5 |
Pennsylvania NPDES permits: questions
NPDES permit search in other states
Sources and methodology
Flow, permit and violation figures come from the EPA's ICIS-NPDES discharge monitoring records. Population served comes from the Clean Watersheds Needs Survey 2022. Treatment structures are identified by Klarifi's review of aerial imagery, and capital improvement projects are extracted from published municipal budget documents. Violations are counted over the last three years of monitoring reports.
Data refreshed October 12, 2026.
Wastewater terms: NPDES permit · POTW · Significant industrial user · MGD · Tertiary treatment · WWTP · all terms