Attribution and data provenance
Effective July 30, 2026 · machine-readable notice available
What the project licenses
CC BY 4.0 applies to Public Evidence Project's original selection, arrangement, normalization, summaries and documentation. Underlying government documents and unoriginal public-record facts remain subject to their source terms and are not claimed as exclusive project property.
We do not claim exclusive ownership of Virginia DEQ documents, other government records or facts that anyone can independently obtain from those sources.
What to retain when reusing project material
When reuse engages the project’s licensed selection, arrangement, normalization, summaries or documentation, CC BY 4.0 requires appropriate credit, a license link and an indication of changes. The supplied URI for the licensed material should be retained to the extent reasonably practicable.
Preferred national-dataset attribution:
Public Evidence Project, U.S. Data Center Public Records Dataset, https://publicevidence.org/data/national-data-center-public-records, CC BY 4.0. Changes indicated where applicable.
For the Virginia permit index, use: Public Evidence Project, Virginia Data Center Air Permit Index, https://publicevidence.org/data, CC BY 4.0. Changes indicated where applicable.
Attribution identifies the reused project material; it does not imply endorsement by Public Evidence Project, a source agency, a researcher or any other cited institution.
Machine-readable provenance
Every national CSV row and GeoJSON or JSON record carries its Public Evidence record URL, dataset URL, license URL and attribution URL. Downloads and APIs also send HTTP link relations for the canonical dataset, license and attribution notice.
Third-party contribution rule
Before Public Evidence Project contributes curated records, normalized fields or research work to another database, the destination must provide a permanent public provenance path back to the exact project dataset or record. A closed issue, private acknowledgment or contributor name without a URL does not satisfy this project policy.
This rule governs what the project chooses to contribute in the future. It does not add restrictions to material already offered under CC BY 4.0 and does not convert public-source facts into project property.
License and verification
Read the CC BY 4.0 license. For a record’s substantive meaning, the linked primary government source controls over the project summary.