Environmental stewardship now every unit's responsibility

  • Published
  • By Dan Galindo
  • 482nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HOMESTEAD ARB, Fla. --  The 482nd Civil Engineering Environmental Flight recently implemented a program that makes environmental stewardship an active part of every unit’s overall mission. 

The environmental management system program, mandated by Presidential Executive order and Air Force directives, aims to ensure that units on base are aware of their responsibilities and their environmental status. Basically, it puts more responsibility in each unit’s court. 

“The reality is that no matter how good [the environmental flight] is at meeting legal requirements and preventing pollution, we cannot be everywhere all the time to answer questions, ensure compliance and protect the environment,” said EMS program coordinator Molly Long. “Therefore, it’s critical that personnel at all levels understand how their activities impact the environment and have access to information about minimizing those impacts so we can assure good environmental stewardship 24-7.” 

Now everyone on base has ‘round the clock access to that information through the civil engineering intranet website at \\232-137server/hst web\P2\EMS.htm 

“We’ve always had some form of an environmental management program at the base,” said Long. “However, the EMS provides a more systemic way for units to communicate with us.” 

“It’s a proactive approach. Instead of reacting to an issue, we want to identify possible hazards and prevent a problem to begin with,” she said. 

EMS is a permanent program that coordinates, manages, tracks and improves environmental issues that each unit faces. Once organizations identify all the ways they impact the environment, both positively and negatively, they monitor and control those issues. 

Under the program, people learn what laws apply to their situations and how to make sure they follow it. Unit environmental coordinators and cross functional team members continuously monitor the issues and report their findings so that senior leadership can provide the resources and training to lessen the impact of environmental hazards. 

This method of tracking environmental issues on base is a marked change for the Air Force, which used to deal with environmental improvement issues separately. Now units manage those considerations as part of their mission goals. 

Long said that the ultimate goal is for all operations to be “sustainable.” 

“It means more than accepting and managing environmental liabilities, and more than just improving our activities to minimize them,” she said. “Sustainability means that by our presence and our activities we actually improve our surrounding environment beyond its current status.” 

Another aspect of the EMS program is to spread the word about the base environmental policy, outlined through a simple acronym – H.E.A.T; Help mission, Environmental compliance, Always improve, Tackle pollution. 

“All permanent base personnel [including tenant units and contractors] are required to know the key points of the environmental policy,” she said. 

“I heard one person put it very simply [at an environmental conference],” said Long. “’If we accomplish all our mission goals, but ruin the environment, we have failed our mission.’”