The U.S. Army Corps manages one of the largest federal environmental missions: restoring degraded ecosystems; constructing sustainable facilities; regulating waterways; managing natural resources; and, cleaning up contaminated sites from past military activities.
Our environmental programs support the warfighter and military installations worldwide as well as USACE public recreation facilities throughout the country. In 2002, USACE adopted its seven Environmental Operating Principles, or green ethics, which continue to guide our environmental and sustainability work today.
USACE works in partnership with other federal and state agencies, non-governmental organizations and academic institutions to find innovative solutions to challenges that affect everyone – sustainability, climate change, endangered species, environmental cleanup, ecosystem restoration and more.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Formerly Used Defense Sites Program, or FUDS, aims to reduce human health and the environment risks that are the result of past Department of Defense activities at formerly used DOD properties. These properties range from privately owned farms to national parks.
Baltimore District administers the FUDS program for properties in Virginia.
The FUDS Program cleans up only DoD-generated pollution which occurred before transfer of property to private owners, or federal, state or local government owners. The DOD does not own the property that FUDS is cleaning up, but works hand-in-hand with current property owners and regulators during clean-up efforts.
A FUDS clean-up process takes part in three phases:
Phase 1 is the inventory phase, which determines whether the property was used by the DoD, and, if contamination is present, it resulted from DoD activity.
Phase 2 is the investigation phase, which determines the nature and extent of the contamination.
Phase 3 is the clean-up phase. This phase cleans up the property to protect human health, safety and the environment.