Production of hazardous materials is an unavoidable consequence of modern military operations. The products that sustain the Army each day—such as motor oils, paints, cleaning compounds, and aircraft fluids—generate hazardous materials that present installations and units with significant health, safety, and environmental issues and management challenges. At Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the Army's third largest installation and the home of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), management of hazardous materials has come into crucial focus as the post supports the Nation's fight against terrorism.
Fort Campbell has emerged as a prime example of how a comprehensive and successful hazardous materials management program (HMMP) can support vital logistics management for today's combat troops. This success is the result of a 6-year partnership between the acquisition and logistics program at Fort Campbell and the Army Environmental Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, that has integrated a Department of Defense-designed software package with Army-recommended business practices. The automated HMMP at Fort Campbell has streamlined its acquisition and logistics efforts into a well-established support program for deployed troops.
The Army Environmental Center assisted Fort Campbell in fielding the first version of the Hazardous Substance Management System (HSMS) software in 1996 as part of an Army initiative to field a "life cycle" tracking system for hazardous materials. Fort Campbell was selected for initial fielding of HSMS because of the importance of its mission and the magnitude of its supply operation.
HSMS is the Department of Defense's hazardous materials and hazardous waste tracking system. It is an automated tool designed to help installations achieve specific hazardous materials objectives as part of meeting health, safety, materials-handling, and environmental compliance requirements. The HSMS software allows not only better manipulation and control of inventory items than previous methods but also better visibility and accountability of hazardous materials and wastes.
As of July 2002, the HSMS initial operating capability had been fielded at 65 Army installations in and outside of the continental United States as part of the installations' HMMPs. Sites using HSMS represent the full spectrum of Army installations. Additional fielding of HSMS to other Army installations is projected for 2004.
Successful hazardous materials management in the Fort Campbell supply operation has resulted from combining effective business practices with ongoing improvements to the HSMS software. Fort Campbell has established a comprehensive set of business practices that are based on eight practices outlined in Army Regulation 200-1, Environmental Protection and Enhancement. These practices include—
Following these business practices, the first step in developing the Fort Campbell HMMP was establishing a single supply point on the installation through which all hazardous materials are processed, issued, and stored. Fort Campbell's Pollution Prevention Operations Center (PPOC) includes two 7,000-square-foot warehouse facilities that centralize the installation's HMMP operations.
One facility is a hazardous materials contingency support center. It currently supports 122 deployable customers and manages 141 contingency packages, with 24-hour support available. The other facility is a hazardous materials supply warehouse used for processing and storing incoming materials and distributing them to garrison and contingency operations.
The installation's acquisition and logistics program managers use HSMS very aggressively as an automated "cradle to grave" tracking tool for hazardous materials management. Everything they do is tracked with HSMS.
To accommodate unit needs for power projection, Fort Campbell commanders have identified 30-day supply packages with hazardous materials that are needed to sustain a unit or operation in a combat environment. These packages represent a wide spectrum of combat support materials and include items such as motor oils, engine oils, turbine engine aircraft fluids, paint, adhesives, and cleaning compounds. An estimated 1,200 packages have been pushed out from Fort Campbell since 1997 to support soldiers in combat and in training.
Fort Campbell commanders first developed two
hazardous materials requirements lists. One is a 7-day
acquisition and logistics list to be used for supporting
installation activities, including motor pools, hangars,
and maintenance facilities. The second list outlines a
30-days of supply (DOS) hazardous materials combat
load, usually referred to as a unit basic load;
commanders, executive officers, environmental officials, and the
full command staff developed this list. The items on
this second list are maintained at the Fort Campbell
PPOC's hazardous materials contingency center as customer
property.
To accommodate combat soldiers' potential around-the-clock needs, the HMMP at Fort Campbell is networked into the installation emergency operations center. Appropriate inventory levels at the user level also have been established. A key part of achieving program efficiency has been the continuity of the process. To date, Fort Campbell's hazardous materials contingency support for Operation Enduring Freedom has included the following—
Issuing 109 of the 30-DOS packages for divisional units.
Issuing 16 of the 30-to-90-DOS packages for supporting Special Operations Forces (SOF) units.
Supplying divisional and SOF units with nonhazardous materials contingency center items such as fire extinguishers 521 times.
Packaging and issuing three class IX (repair parts) battery contingency packages and one class III (petroleum, oils, and lubricants) contingency package.
Issuing 12,000 pounds of lime, sixty 55-gallon drums of dust-suppressing chemical and spray equipment, 24 chemical packages for reverse-osmosis water purification units, and 20 field sanitation kits.
Issuing 170 additional contingency packages to divisional units for training exercises.
The planning stage of this contingency support program was purely logistics oriented, focusing on unit demands and the availability of current resources. The entire acquisition process has been command driven over time to understand what customers need. Logistics is involved throughout the preparation process to ensure that supplies are available on the shelf when the need for them arises.
As part of their HMMP, the installation's acquisition and logistics program managers adopted a centralized approach for managing hazardous materials. Centralized hazardous materials management provides installation-level visibility and management of all hazardous materials being used or stored at an installation.
The solution for avoiding hazardous waste accumulation requires a program to reuse hazardous materials. This is accomplished with shelf-life management and stock rotation practices. The establishment of an AUL identifies authorized users who have a justified need to order, receive, and use hazardous materials. The AUL also documents those hazardous materials stock numbers approved for use on the installation and furnishes a screening mechanism for product substitutions; it also provides safety and health information on hazardous materials.
Fort Campbell has developed a process for ordering and issuing by unit of use. This is the ordering or issuing of the exact quantity of a product required to complete a specific process. Asking the customer explicit questions during acquisitions allows for much greater cost savings and accountability.
The establishment of Fort Campbell's comprehensive hazardous materials training and awareness program has encouraged safety and product awareness at all management levels. Throughout their support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the environmental personnel at Fort Campbell have been carefully teamed with personnel at the materiel management center.
As a result of implementing this HMMP, the Fort Campbell staff earned two prestigious White House "Closing the Circle" awards for "Greening the Government." The awards were made in the categories of model facility demonstration and education and outreach.
The Army Environmental Center plays a key role in initiating HMMPs on installations and in guiding them to successful implementation. The progressively expanded HMMP and HSMS support a very successful initiative for managing installations and for aiding our combat troops. The behind-the-scenes support management of hazardous materials has enabled Fort Campbell and the 101st Airborne Division to accomplish their missions in supporting the battle against terrorism a little more efficiently and effectively. ALOG
Colonel James M. De Paz is the Commander of the Army Environmental Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. He holds a M.Ed. degree in science from North Georgia College and is a graduate of the Chemical Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Army Command and General Staff College, the Air War College, and the Airborne, Ranger, and Pathfinder Schools.