Pennsylvania
Environmental complaints and emergencies
Pennsylvania environmental complaints and emergencies
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) takes reports of environmental emergencies on a 24 hour hotline, 800-541-2050, and takes environmental complaints online or at 866-255-5158. Duty officers are on call in each DEP regional office to dispatch response personnel.
In a Phase I ESA
ASTM E1527-21 does not name state spill or complaint lists among its standard record sources. The federal counterpart of a state spill list is the emergency response record described on the ERNS page. Pennsylvania's records still matter, because a complaint or an emergency response can be the only record of an event that never became a cleanup case.
- An emergency is defined by urgency. DEP calls an environmental emergency a situation requiring an immediate response. Its examples are discoloration of a waterway, a fish kill and spilled material. DEP says it will usually dispatch a member of its Environmental Emergency Response Team, and that it works with local emergency responders and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.
- A complaint gets an inspector. DEP says a field inspector is assigned to a complaint and contacts the person once the investigation is done or if more information is needed. The investigation is the part of the record worth asking for.
- Complainant information is confidential. DEP says complainant information is always kept confidential, and it accepts anonymous complaints.
- The response is regional. DEP's emergency response program is in all of its regional offices, where it responds to environmental accidents and emergencies and assists local and county fire companies and private cleanup companies. Calls to the complaint line are routed to the regional office for the county.
- Some matters go elsewhere. Mining and blasting complaints go to the local district mining office. DEP says it has no regulations or authority for indoor air quality and cannot address mold inside homes or apartments. Environmental health concerns with health symptoms go to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
- Heating oil spills go to the local DEP office. DEP asks that releases that may have reached groundwater or surface water be reported to the local DEP office, and recommends reporting all heating oil spills. See residential heating oil tanks.
The policies page of DEP's Land Recycling Program links a policy on coordinating immediate responses with the final remediation of releases of regulated substances. Check the Land Recycling Program lists and the Storage Tank Cleanup Program list for the same property.
Where to look a site up
The pages read name no public list of complaints or emergency responses. Two DEP tools reach related records:
- DEP says its Environmental Site Assessment Search Tool covers discharges of pollution, compliance and enforcement, among other things.
- eFACTS shows inspections and violations for a facility.
DEP's oil and gas reports page links a report of resolved water supply complaints. See oil and gas wells.
Getting the file
Inspection reports, notices of violation and enforcement orders are among the records DEP says it routinely makes available for inspection. DEP recommends an Informal File Review, requested on an electronic form and scheduled with the regional office, before a request under the Right-to-Know Law. Both routes are on the Informal File Review and Right-to-Know requests page. Give the location and the approximate date of the event, since DEP says it does not research or generate reports.
Sources
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection pages, read October 1, 2026, no modified date shown: