Stormwater complaint management software for municipal programs.

One record per complaint, with intake, classification, field checks, photos, and follow-up tasks linked together. IDDE cases stay attached to the investigation thread, non-IDDE complaints stay on a clear path to resolution, and a coordinator can see what is still open on a single view.

Try the demo See pricing

01 · The complaints you actually get

Calls come in across a wide range. The system has to fit all of them.

Municipal stormwater complaints arrive in many shapes. Some are clearly illicit discharges. Some look like one and turn out to be something else. Some are non-IDDE complaints that still belong on the program's plate. A complaint workspace has to handle the whole range without forcing every call into the IDDE process.

Petroleum sheen, fuel, or oil reported in a creek, ditch, or storm drain
Wash water complaints from car washes, food trucks, or outdoor cleaning
Sediment or turbidity from a construction site or eroding slope
Sanitary-looking discharge or suspected cross-connection
Dumpster leaks and grease management complaints at restaurants
Outdoor washing, pressure-washing runoff, or paint disposal
Illegal dumping into storm drains, ditches, or vacant lots
Floor-drain concerns from auto shops, fleet operators, or industrial sites

02 · The complaint record

Structured fields that match how complaints come in.

The information that arrives in the first phone call is the foundation for everything that follows. NPDESTracker captures intake as structured fields, with the caller's own words preserved, so the field inspector and the coordinator have the same starting point. If the call turns into an IDDE investigation, the record carries straight through to that thread.

On every complaint record

Complaint date, time, and intake channel
Reporter name and contact details when provided, with anonymous calls clearly marked
Reported address, with a coordinate pin where the caller can describe one
Complaint classification, with IDDE flagged separately when conditions warrant
What the reporter saw, captured in their own words
Assigned staff member and target response window
Linked field inspections, photos, GPS, and follow-up tasks
Closure status: resolved at source, referred, unfounded, or escalated to enforcement

03 · Four common paths a complaint takes

Not every complaint becomes an IDDE case. The system handles all four paths.

Triage is part of the work. A complaint that looks like an illicit discharge gets the investigation thread. A complaint that turns out to be a non-IDDE issue still gets tracked through to closure. A referral keeps its trail. An unfounded complaint still gets a real field-check write-up.

Looks like an illicit discharge

The complaint is flagged as an IDDE case and follows the investigation thread: field screening, source tracing, property contact, and elimination. The chain stays linked to the original complaint record.

Looks like a non-IDDE stormwater complaint

Sediment from a construction site, a maintenance issue, or a property condition that does not rise to an IDDE case is still tracked through to resolution, with photos and follow-up tasks attached to the same record.

Looks like a referral

Some complaints belong to another department or agency. The record captures who it was referred to, when, and what came back. The program does not lose the trail just because the lead agency changed.

Looks unfounded after a field check

Not every complaint turns out to be a real discharge. The field-check notes and photos stay on the record so the program can show what was checked and why it was closed unfounded.

04 · Open and overdue, on one view

A coordinator can see what is still open.

Complaints that close out the same week are easy. The hard ones are the multi-week investigations, the referrals waiting on another department, and the cases that need a second field visit. NPDESTracker shows open complaints with their last activity, target response window, and current assignee on one view, so nothing falls off the radar.

Closed complaints stay on the timeline of the address and the outfall they touched. The next time something happens on the same outfall, the history is right there.

05 · Feeds the annual report

Complaint counts come from records, not from memory.

Counts of complaints received, complaints investigated, IDDE cases identified, and IDDE cases eliminated come from the underlying records when the annual report opens. Non-IDDE complaints still appear in program-level rollups for council briefings and grant documentation. The full annual reporting story is on the reporting page.

Inside the annual report workspace, Smart Draft is an assistive drafting feature that pulls from the linked complaint and investigation records to help start a narrative answer. A coordinator reads the draft, confirms the totals, edits anything that needs judgment, and saves the final language. Smart Draft does not submit, certify, lock, or replace staff review.

NPDESTracker does not submit annual reports to any state or federal agency. The submission step stays with the human at the agency, on the agency's submission channel.

06 · Honest scope

What this does, and what it does not do.

NPDESTracker is a record-keeping workspace for stormwater complaints. It is not an emergency dispatch tool, a 24/7 response system, or a public-safety hotline. It does not page on-call staff and it does not carry legal enforcement authority on its own. Programs use it to keep the complaint and follow-up records aligned to the permit.

Enforcement decisions stay with the program. NPDESTracker holds the records of notices of violation, compliance orders, and resolutions, but the decision to issue, the legal authority to enforce, and the agency response stay with the program and its legal counsel. NPDESTracker does not promise compliance.

See the complaint workspace on sample data.

The demo is browse-only with sample records. The Founder Pilot runs it on your own program for 90 days.

Try the demo Or read about the Founder Pilot