Programmatic Environmental Assessment for Real Property Master Plans on U.S. Army Installation Management Command Garrisons
| Published date | 24 April 2020 |
| Citation | 85 FR 23010 |
| Record Number | 2020-08737 |
| Section | Notices |
| Court | Army Department,Defense Department |
Federal Register, Volume 85 Issue 80 (Friday, April 24, 2020)
[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 80 (Friday, April 24, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Page 23010]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-08737]
[[Page 23010]]
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Department of the Army
Programmatic Environmental Assessment for Real Property Master
Plans on U.S. Army Installation Management Command Garrisons
AGENCY: Department of the Army, DoD.
ACTION: Notice of Availability.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM) has
completed a Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) analyzing the
impacts of developing, adopting, implementing, and updating Real
Property Management Plans (RPMPs) and their component documents using a
standardized process in accordance with Department of Defense (DoD) and
Army guidance, and encouraging community partner participation in this
process. The Army is making the PEA and a draft Finding of No
Significant Impact (FONSI) available for public comment. The PEA
identifies no significant environmental impacts from implementing the
Proposed Action. The draft FONSI concludes that preparing an
environmental impact statement is not required and, therefore, one will
not be prepared.
DATES: The public comment period will end 30 days after publication of
the Notice of Availability in the Federal Register by the Department of
the Army.
ADDRESSES: Written comments should be sent by mail to U.S. Army
Environmental Command, ATTN: Public Comments, 2450 Connell Road (Build
2264), Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234-7664; or by
email to [email protected].
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: U.S. Army Environmental Command
Public Affairs Office at (210) 466-1590 or toll-free at (855) 846-3940,
or at [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Army has prepared this PEA in accordance
with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) (Title 42 of
the United States Code Section 4321); Council on Environmental Quality
(CEQ) NEPA regulations (Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations
[CFR] Parts 1500-1508); and the Army's NEPA implementing regulation,
Environmental Analysis of Army Actions (32 CFR part 651).
The purpose of the Proposed Action is for IMCOM garrisons to plan
for and manage their real property assets comprehensively to permit
installation expansion, reduction, and changes in mission sustainably
over a 20-year planning horizon. The Proposed Action is needed to
provide a standard process to guide sustainable and energy-efficient
development across IMCOM installations that supports mission
requirements. It is also needed to provide a continuous analytical
process to evaluate factors affecting the present and future physical
development and operation of installations. Standardizing the process
of developing RPMPs and component documents at IMCOM garrisons is
expected to result in each garrison producing a more thoughtful and
deliberative plan that contains comparable categories of information
and is similarly organized across all installations.
The PEA will serve to integrate the NEPA process more efficiently
into the master planning process, avoid unnecessary duplicative NEPA
analyses, better inform decision makers, and encourage active public
involvement.
The RPMP serves as a garrison's road map for short- and long-term
investment, management and development of its real property assets,
including land, facilities, and infrastructure. It provides guidelines
for sustainable installation development, regulates project siting, and
ensures sustainable and orderly development that supports the
installation's mission.
When considering implementing an individual proposed action, IMCOM
garrisons would complete the Environmental Checklist in the PEA to
determine whether tiering from the PEA and FONSI would be appropriate
and what type of additional site-specific NEPA documentation, if any,
would be required. If a garrison determines that a specific
installation RPMP, RPMP component document, or project requires
additional NEPA analysis tiered from the PEA, the garrison would be
required to complete the appropriate NEPA documentation before making
any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources related to
that action. Tiering from the PEA, when appropriate, would avoid or
reduce the costs of repetitive, similar analyses and enable IMCOM to
focus resources on only those site-specific environmental issues that
require deeper analyses.
Members of the public, federally recognized Native American tribes,
and federal, state, and local agencies are invited to submit written
comments on the PEA and/or draft FONSI.
The PEA and draft FONSI can be accessed on the U.S. Army
Environmental Command's NEPA Documents page at https://aec.army.mil/index.php?cID=352.
Brenda S. Bowen,
Army Federal Register Liaison Officer.
[FR Doc. 2020-08737 Filed 4-23-20; 8:45 am]
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