Chicago keeps three environmental files on its data portal — complaints, inspections, enforcement — and each one splits at the same seam, a reading this page takes from the files’ own data-source column and from what each dataset’s description states: the Department of Environment’s records run to December 31, 2011, the Department of Public Health’s from January 1, 2012, when the DOE was disbanded and its authorities transferred, and a data-source column marks which half a row belongs to. Read by halves, the older half of the complaints and inspections files records no outcomes at all: zero of 40,506 complaint rows carry a resolution and zero of 177,749 inspection rows carry a result. The newer half of those two files records an outcome on every row — and leaves 12,168 of its 24,896 complaints, 49 percent, with no date, along with 11,687 of its 104,867 inspection rows; the inspection file’s dates run from 1753 to 4202 on 28 rows. The enforcement file’s fine column is, by its own definition, a case total — and a figure this page found repeated across a docket’s rows, up to 100 rows on one docket — and it goes negative on 2,543 rows, so no dollar total appears on this page. What the three files do support is counted here: 65,402 complaint rows led by air pollution, 282,616 inspection rows of which “ReInspection Required” is the newer half’s most common result, and 15,100 enforcement dockets.
DOE Environmental Complaints, Inspections and Enforcement, Chicago data portal · 65,402 + 282,616 + 37,927 rows retrieved August 21, 2026 · no name, address or comment columns selectedOne seam, three files
The complaints, inspections and enforcement datasets each open with the same sentence: records of the Department of Environment through December 31, 2011 and of the Department of Public Health since January 1, 2012, because “on January 1, 2012, the DOE was disbanded and all its inspection, permitting, and enforcement authorities were transferred to the CDPH.” Each file carries a data_source column with two values — “HISTORIC DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENT” and “DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH” — and that column, not the date, is the seam this page reads along, because the halves differ in what they recorded, not only when. The older half is the larger in every file: 40,506 of 65,402 complaints, 177,749 of 282,616 inspections, 24,103 of 37,927 enforcement rows.
Complaints: 65,402 rows, one half with outcomes
- Older half (DOE, 1993–2011)40,506 rows0 with a resolution; 40,504 dated
- Newer half (CDPH, 2012–)24,896 rows24,896 with a resolution; 12,728 dated
Across both halves the file’s largest complaint type is “Air Pollution Work Order,” 25,156 rows or 38 percent, then noise (12,538), illegal dumping (9,101), toxics and hazardous materials (6,036), construction and demolition (3,727), and asbestos (3,190); the newer half leads with air pollution, noise, and construction and demolition in that order. The older half’s complaints run 2,271 in 1993 to a peak of 2,869 in 2000 and 816 in 2011, and its resolution column is empty on every row — the column exists, the older system did not fill it. The newer half fills it on every row: 8,594 Resolved (34.5 percent), 7,984 Alleged violation not found (32.1 percent), 3,444 Complaint Valid, 1,317 Alleged violation founded, 1,005 Complaint Invalid, 957 Alleged violation unfounded, and several hundred referrals to Streets and Sanitation, Buildings and other departments — labels reported as the file has them, and not reconciled here into “substantiated” or not. What the newer half does not fill is the date: 12,168 of its 24,896 rows carry no complaint date, and of the 12,728 that do, only 100 fall in 2012 through 2019 — then 203 in 2020, 1,114 in 2021, 2,033 in 2022, 1,994 in 2023, 2,159 in 2024, 2,870 in 2025 and 2,143 so far in 2026. Whether the undated rows belong to those thin years is not something the file says, and this page places none of them. One grain note: the newer half’s 24,896 rows carry 23,068 distinct complaint IDs, so some IDs repeat; the older half’s IDs are unique.
Inspections: 282,616 rows, and dates from 1753 to 4202
- Older half (DOE)177,749 rows0 with a result; 109 undated
- Newer half (CDPH)104,867 rows104,867 with a result; 11,687 undated
The older half’s categories are the DOE’s program names — solid waste (40,897), air quality (34,089), demolition and asbestos (32,322), tank inspections (23,470) — and its result column is empty on all 177,749 rows; its busiest year in the file is 2006 at 15,125. The newer half’s categories still wear the old department’s name in the successor’s system — “DOE General Flow” (38,014), “COMPLAINT RESPONSE” (24,751), “DOE Air Quality” (12,156), “DOE Recycling Facility” (11,049) — and it carries a result on every row: “ReInspection Required” on 34,038 (32.5 percent), “Inspection Passed” on 32,135 (30.6 percent), Resolved 8,559, Alleged violation not found 7,953, Violation Given 4,577, Warning Given 2,836. Its dated rows run 8,191 in 2012, its first full year, down to 3,860 in 2023 and back to 5,877 in 2025, with 3,795 so far in 2026; 11,687 of its rows carry no date. The file’s date column also holds 28 rows with years outside 1990–2026 — ten in 1753, one each in 1954, 1963, 1971, 2028, 2201, 2911, 2924, 3017, 3005 and 4202, and a few more — reported as the file has them and left out of the year arc, not repaired. The 282,616 rows carry 280,933 distinct inspection IDs.
Enforcement: a fine column this page will not sum
- Older half (DOE)24,103 rows9,799 dockets; fine on 21,859 rows; none negative
- Newer half (CDPH)13,824 rows5,304 dockets / 5,686 cases; fine on 12,187 rows; 2,543 negative
The enforcement file is the one that invites a dollar headline, and the reason this page prints none is in its own dictionary: fine_amount is “the total fine assessed for the case not including court fees” — a case figure — while the file’s rows are individual violations within a docket. In the older half, 7,411 dockets carry more than one row, and 6,947 of them (94 percent) repeat a single fine value across every row, one docket running to 100 rows; add the rows and a case total can be counted many times over, a potential overcount the file offers no case key to resolve. In the newer half the repetition is looser — 869 of 3,937 multi-row dockets carry one value — and the column goes negative on 2,543 rows, as low as −$25,000, beside 7,019 positive values and 2,625 zeros, with the largest single value $42,500. Summing the column row by row would count a case total as many times as its docket has rows, and this page declines it; a sum at case grain would need the case key, which the older half lacks entirely. What the file supports instead: 15,100 distinct dockets across both halves; 19,340 older-half rows and 7,019 newer-half rows carrying a positive fine figure; and, in the newer half, a count of rows with a positive figure by violation year — 457 in 2012, 560 in 2017, 640 in 2019, 698 in 2024, 648 in 2025, 118 so far in 2026. The outcome labels are the file’s, undefined in it: the newer half’s principal dispositions read LIABPLEA (7,205), NONSUIT (3,517), DEFAULT (2,001), LIABLE (266), NOTLIAB (64) and 640 blanks, with the remaining 131 rows spread across a dozen rarer codes; the older half’s read L (9,677), N (7,532), G (799) and 6,094 blanks, plus a single row in another code. Its case type is the same hearing under two spellings — “Administration Hearing” on 9,882 rows and “ADMINISTRATIVE HEARING” on 3,889 once its own letter-case variants are combined — and its status column says Closed 9,280 times and CLOSED 3,707 times, 12,987 closed with the two spellings combined, against 774 Open and 61 ACTIVE.
What the three files can and cannot say
They can say how many complaints, inspections and enforcement rows each department’s system recorded, of what types, with what labels, and — for the newer half — with what outcome label. They cannot say what happened to a 1993–2011 complaint or inspection, because that half’s outcome columns are empty; they cannot place the newer half’s undated rows in time; they cannot reliably support a total of fines assessed; and the labels “Resolved,” “ReInspection Required” and “LIABPLEA” are reprinted as the file’s words, not translated. The DOE-to-CDPH seam is the description’s own explanation, and this page reads the halves on either side of it without blending them.
Known limits
Counts are rows as the files hold them, by the files’ own columns; IDs repeat in the newer halves of two files and the grain is stated. Undated and impossibly dated rows are counted and excluded from year arcs, never placed. No inspector, respondent, address, comment or detail column was selected, so nothing here identifies a person, a business or a site. These are records of what two departments’ systems captured; this page takes no position on either department’s work.
- Sources DOE Environmental Complaints (fypr-ksnz, 65,402 rows), DOE Environmental Inspections (i9rk-duva, 282,616 rows) and DOE Environmental Enforcement (yqn4-3th2, 37,927 rows), Chicago data portal, all retrieved August 21, 2026; each updates daily.
- Counting Every figure is a count of rows or of distinct IDs within a data_source half; year arcs use the files’ own date columns and exclude undated rows and years outside 1990–2026; resolution, result, disposition, case-type and status values are the files’ labels, with case-type and status also counted after folding letter case. The fine column is described, tested for repetition within dockets and for negatives, and not summed. Percentages are computed from raw counts.
- Not selected inspector, respondent, address and street fields, inspection_name, complaint_detail, comment and ticket_no were never requested from the portal.
Computed by KCM Desk from records retrieved August 21, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.