EPA announces the release of a new technical-assistance tool for state and watershed-level surface water quality protection and restoration programs: the recovery potential screening website (www.epa.gov/recoverypotential/ [1]). Recovery potential screening is a flexible approach for comparing relative differences in restorability among impaired waters across a state, watershed or other area. The website provides step-by-step screening directions, restorability indicators and literature, and tools for scoring and displaying results. EPA developed recovery potential screening to help users improve their restoration programs by revealing and comparing factors that influence restoration success. The method is applicable to watershed priority setting, impaired waters listing, TMDL implementation, 319/nonpoint source control, healthy watersheds assessment, and watershed plan development.
