This Guidance is a compliance monitoring tool for use by federal and state inspectors and a compliance assistance tool for use by the regulated community: owners or operators of sewer systems collecting domestic sewage.

The Guidance is also for use by consultants or third-party evaluators or compliance assistance providers. The Guidance identifies, for the regulated community, some of the criteria used by EPA inspectors to evaluate a collection system’s management, operation and maintenance program activities. Owners/operators can review their own systems against the checklist (Chapter 3) to reduce the occurrence of sewer overflows and improve or maintain compliance. Additionally, having key board members/policymakers read this Guidance also will allow them to better understand the benefits of investing in a good CMOM program.