Rural Community Assistance Partnership

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watershed

EPA announces availability of green infrastructure technical assistance to selected partner communities

EPA is accepting letters of interest from communities interested in receiving direct assistance for projects that facilitate the use of green infrastructure to protect water quality.  Technical assistance will be provided through EPA contract support and will be directed to watersheds/sewersheds with significant water-quality degradation associated with urban stormwater.  The total EPA assistance available is approximately $950,000 and will be distributed among 10 to 20 projects. The value of the assistance available to each project will be approximately $50,000 to $100,000.

EPA launches recovery potential screening website to assist restoration planners

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/).  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.

Study shows cumulative impacts of mountaintop mining on an Appalachian watershed

A study published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences show the cumulative impacts of mountaintop mining on an Appalachian watershed.

The study's abstract reads: