View all text of Subchapter III [§ 1311 - § 1330]
§ 1318. Records and reports; inspections
(a) Maintenance; monitoring equipment; entry; access to informationWhenever required to carry out the objective of this chapter, including but not limited to (1) developing or assisting in the development of any effluent limitation, or other limitation, prohibition, or effluent standard, pretreatment standard, or standard of performance under this chapter; (2) determining whether any person is in violation of any such effluent limitation, or other limitation, prohibition or effluent standard, pretreatment standard, or standard of performance; (3) any requirement established under this section; or (4) carrying out sections 1315, 1321, 1342, 1344 (relating to State permit programs), 1345, and 1364 of this title—
(A) the Administrator shall require the owner or operator of any point source to (i) establish and maintain such records, (ii) make such reports, (iii) install, use, and maintain such monitoring equipment or methods (including where appropriate, biological monitoring methods), (iv) sample such effluents (in accordance with such methods, at such locations, at such intervals, and in such manner as the Administrator shall prescribe), and (v) provide such other information as he may reasonably require; and
(B) the Administrator or his authorized representative (including an authorized contractor acting as a representative of the Administrator), upon presentation of his credentials—
(i) shall have a right of entry to, upon, or through any premises in which an effluent source is located or in which any records required to be maintained under clause (A) of this subsection are located, and
(ii) may at reasonable times have access to and copy any records, inspect any monitoring equipment or method required under clause (A), and sample any effluents which the owner or operator of such source is required to sample under such clause.
(b) Availability to public; trade secrets exception; penalty for disclosure of confidential information
(c) Application of State law
(d) Access by Congress
(June 30, 1948, ch. 758, title III, § 308, as added Pub. L. 92–500, § 2, Oct. 18, 1972, 86 Stat. 858; amended Pub. L. 95–217, § 67(c)(1), Dec. 27, 1977, 91 Stat. 1606; Pub. L. 100–4, title III, § 310, title IV, § 406(d)(1), Feb. 4, 1987, 101 Stat. 41, 73.)