EPA's Office of Water (OW) announced the release of STORET Version 2.0 on April 15. This new version of EPA's main repository for water monitoring data will better enable our State, local, Tribal and Federal partners to document their ambient water quality and biological monitoring activities and manage their environmental data. STORET is a cornerstone of the water monitoring program because of its uniform approach to the storage of quality assurance metadata, its adherence to EPA data standards, and its ability to store disparate kinds of data. The newly released Version 2.0 is fully compatible with current Windows platforms for personal computers; improves the batch upload capability for water data; allows users to store data describing probability-based monitoring designs; can store documents, graphics, and digital pictures; and allows users to store information on over 320,000 different biological species. OW will host a one-week STORET Version 2.0 Train-the-Trainers workshop for Regional STORET coordinators in June, and will be posting a training schedule for Version 2.0 at www.epa.gov/STORET/.

If you have questions about STORET, please call the STORET User Assistance at 1-800-424-9067 or send an email to STORET@epa.gov.