Services for
the Public

Environmental Support for Others
Call on the Corps to manage cleanup projects

The Environmental Support for Others program allows Buffalo District to provide technical and management services for customers who do not have the in-house capability to meet their environmental requirements.

Thus, we can assist federal, state and local agencies that enter into memorandums of agreement with us and provide funding for specified activities. At the same time, the agencies retain legal responsibility and control over their environmental programs.

Buffalo District employees provide a federal presence for oversight and other management activities to carry out the inherently governmental functions that protect taxpayer investments. We also support the administration's move to privatization, in that we engage private contractors for most activities. We perform some design and field study work in house to maintain the technical competence that enables us to review contractors' work products.

As part of our wide range of technical support services, we conduct site investigations to determine what, if any, contamination exists. If contaminates are found, we can evaluate remedial alternatives in terms of engineering feasibility, environmental impacts and costs. Our remedial design provides details on how the selected remedy will be engineered and constructed.

Let's get together and discuss your problems and the environmental support for others program.

Most of our customers contact the Buffalo District to discuss their needs. We talk about the type of work required, the staff and in-place contracts that are available to do the job.

We are helping a variety of agencies accomplish their goals. For example, we are working with the Ashtabula River Partnership to develop a comprehensive management plan and an environmental impact statement for a cleanup of toxic and polluted sediments. The investigations, disposal site selection and project design for the cleanup require extensive private, inter-agency and local government coordination to keep on schedule.

With a 140-year history of working with other agencies, we know where to look for the information. We know who the potential participants are and what roles they customarily play. We are able to move ahead quickly with the job.

All we need is a memorandum of agreement.

We have agreements for environmental support for others with the:

• Environmental Protection Agency
  
• Economic Development Administration
  
• Department of Energy
  
• Rural Development and Farm Service Agency,
  the former Farmer’s Home Administration
  
• Defense Environmental Restoration Program
  
• Ashtabula River Partnership
  
• Michigan Department of Military Affairs
  
• Federal Aviation Administration
  
• Federal Emergency Management Agency
  
• Onondaga Lake Conference

Our engineers work with superfund and community cleanups

In Ohio, we are working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a superfund cleanup. In New York, we are working with a multi-agency group, the Onondaga Lake Conference, in a clean up of Onondaga Lake, the most polluted lake in North America.

In other parts of the nation, Buffalo District is working with the Minnesota Voluntary Investigation and Cleanup Program in contamination removal from two sites for the U.S. Economic Development administration. We have also worked closely with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in a voluntary cleanup of a steel plant in south Chicago.

The cleanups range in size from a half acre to 200 acres, from inner city to country towns. The Buffalo District involvement ranges from working in partnerships to leading the effort. Projects begin with site investigations, proceed to planning and then design with public involvement, construction oversight and monitoring of the site.

As the Corps' technical center for hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste cleanup in the Great Lakes region, we play a key role in restoring brownfields to a productive use that benefits the community. We have many engineering disciplines involved in the work of protecting human health and safety and the environment: chemical, structural, electrical, environmental, hydraulic, mechanical and civil. These engineers are supported by geologists, biologists, economists, computer programmers, surveyors, real estate specialists, community planners, and public involvement specialists, as well as legal and technical support.

Use of in-house project management teams and in-place contracts, as well as easy access to Corps laboratories, enable us to develop comprehensive management plans that include immediate response, site investigations, health and safety, public involvement, contaminate removal and site monitoring, plus coordination with appropriate local, state and federal environmental agencies.

Our experience in environmental restoration and funds management make us a strong player in the public-private partnerships that are working to clean up Brownfield areas. The Buffalo District can work with communities in brownfields investigations to initiate economic redevelopment and restore economic vitality to sites that have become a liability to the community.

We can help you

• 140 years of engineering
  experience
• comprehensive project management
• ease of funds obligation
  and control