New business practice cuts through red tape  

Sep. 29, 2008

By Amanda Ellison
Jacksonville District

Red tape. It's difficult to avoid its sticky snare; even more difficult to escape its entanglement. Wikipedia defines red tape as "a derisive term for excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making. It is usually applied to government." Sound familiar?
   
Although red tape seems impossible to cut through, there is one team in the Jacksonville District that has succeeded in not only slashing it, but is helping other government organizations do the same with a new business practice that avoids the traps of red tape.
   
The business practice involves the use of new access agreements, and avoids the requirement of issuing a formal Right of Entry request.  A Right of Entry gives the government permission to access private property for specific purposes, such as investigations for munitions or other contaminants on Formerly Used Defense Sites.  Rights of Entry can be very restrictive, time consuming and mired in legalities that must be resolved before work begins.
   
The access agreement is a simple letter requesting access to property owned by other government entities and eliminates the need for the formal Right of Entry process.
   
The first use of an access agreement in the Jacksonville District was implemented for the Lake Bryant Bombing and Gunnery Range, a FUDS located in central Florida. The ranges are located in Ocala National Forest, on U.S. Forest Service property. Jacksonville District has an ongoing project at the Lake Bryant site and regularly needed access to accomplish a Site Inspection.
   
The access agreement was requested in April 2007; by May, the Corps was on site. Field work was completed in August 2007 and the final SI report was issued in March 2008. With this new method of a simple letter and permission from the U.S. Forest Service, the Corps was able to access the property and complete the work in an expeditious manner, saving the government both time and money.
  
Based upon the success of the access agreement at the Lake Bryant site, the Corps will use this simplified agreement with other federal agencies. There is an existing Memorandum of Agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which includes the Forest Service. Proven to be both effective and efficient at the Lake Bryant FUDS, the access agreement has successfully cut the red tape.