Environmental Quality

The DASA-ESOH has the primary responsibility for the Environmental Quality and Native American Affairs programs in the Department of the Army. DASA-ESOH provides policy, advocacy, program direction and oversight for the broad range of Environmental Quality and Native American Affairs activities that help to sustain Army training and readiness. Environmental Quality includes Conservation programs associated with managing natural resource and cultural resource legal requirements, and Native American affairs associated with legal, treaty and trust responsibilities. Compliance programs include managing air, water, and waste legal requirements, pollution prevention initiatives, environmental impact analysis, and environmental auditing and environmental management systems. The DASA ESOH serves as the Department of the Army's primary point of contact with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Congress, other Federal agencies, for the Army Environmental Program.

Army Conservation Program: The Army Conservation Program supports the military mission by helping to maintain the availability of Army installation lands for critical military training and testing missions. This occurs through compliance with the Endangered Species Act and National Historic Preservation Act, among others. Army installations contain over 150,000 cultural resources (historic buildings, archeological sites, Native American sacred sites, and collections), and 213 threatened and endangered plant and animal species. The DASA-ESOH is the designated Army's Federal Preservation Officer (FPO) and senior policy level official for historic preservation and executes responsibilities associated with those designations.

Army Native American Affairs: The DASA-ESOH is the designated Department of the Army Official responsible for ensuring that the Army's trust responsibility and government to government relationship with Federally-recognized Indian Tribes are fulfilled. In fulfilling this obligation, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment and the DASA-ESOH initiated tribal consultation on the development of a Department of the Army policy for interaction with Federally-recognized Indian Tribes. The Secretary of the Army signed the Department of the Army American Indian and Alaska Native Policy Memorandum on 24 October 2012. Click here for the Policy Memorandum.

Army Compliance Program: The Army Compliance Program includes installation compliance activities to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Toxic Substance Control Act. The Army Compliance programs also include the Army's Pollution Prevention (P2) initiatives such as; the Green Procurement Program, Environmental Management System implementation, the Qualified Recycling Program, Toxic Reduction Inventory (TRI) reporting, and hazardous materials management policy. The Army also implements the Environmental Program Assessment System to audit and assist installations in their compliance and management programs.

National Environmental Policy Act - The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to identify and assess reasonable environmental alternatives to their proposed actions that will avoid or minimize adverse effects of the proposed actions and to provide the information to public officials and citizens for their input before decisions are made and actions are taken. Title 32, CFR Part 651 is the Army's NEPA regulation. NEPA set up procedural requirements for all federal government agencies to prepare Environmental Assessments (EAs) and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs).

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