by Avery Yale Kamila
Published in SOSUpdate
(February 2003) Each year 41,000 soldiers and 250 Marine and Army National
Guard and Reserve units receive over 10 million hours of training at Fort Bragg.
During the day this sprawling Army installation that encompasses 161,000 acres
and reaches into six counties in the Sandhills Region of North Carolina has a
population of 100,000. The facility’s mission is to maintain a well-trained
and well-equipped strategic crisis response force that can be deployed anywhere
in the world within 18 hours or less. Despite the installation’s size and
sophistication, Fort Bragg’s commanders began to realize in the 1990s that
their training mission would soon be compromised by resource constraints.
"If land is not properly maintained and managed, it is not going to be here for
training," explains Colonel Addison Davis, Garrison Commander. Recognizing that
there is no undeveloped land adjacent to existing training areas that could be
used for expansion, he and other members of the leadership at Fort Bragg knew
they needed to find a way to better utilize their existing resources.
The solution they found is to make Fort Bragg’s operations sustainable.
"Sustainability is tied directly to national security," says Colonel Davis.
"We have a training mission to perform. We’ve got to be able to train as
realistically as in a combat situation. This has an impact on the land in a
very direct way. We want to reduce the adverse impact on the environment so we
can have those areas to train on in the future."
Planning for the future is at the heart of Fort Bragg’s sustainability vision.
The ambitious process began with the collection of baseline information on energy
usage, air emissions, material procurement, waste generation, water usage, water
treatment and training area management. In April of 2001, Fort Bragg hosted the
Army’s first Executive Sustainability Conference. The 240 conference attendees
were charged with developing 10 strategic goals for the next 25 years.
The long-term goals developed that day call for reducing the use of landfills,
energy, gasoline, diesel, water and discharged water; adopting high performance
building and renovation standards; developing a regional commuting program; purchasing
environmentally preferable products; adopting compatible land use laws with the local
community; and offering environmental education on the base, in the local community
and to anyone else who is interested.
The early successes of the program are many and include reducing solid waste
disposal by 59 percent through recycling and diversion, achieving a weekly curbside
recycling rate of 55 percent and reducing water usage between June and July of 2002
by 30 percent. Fort Bragg’s efforts were recognized by Save Our State with a first annual
North Carolina Sustainability Award in October 2002.
Fort Bragg’s leadership is hoping to share many of the successful and money
saving programs they have developed with others in the region. On February 19
they will host a senior executive seminar that will address regional sustainability
issues. Alan Briggs, Save Our State President, will deliver the keynote address.
"We can work as hard as we can to ensure we have clean air and water on Fort Bragg,
but if the people right next door are not working towards the same goal we can’t achieve
our goals," says Colonel Davis.
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