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The Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow Environmental Division has recently won two awards; one from the Secretary of the Navy and one from the Secretary of Defense.
James Fejeran, the compliance and plans and conservation branch chief for the Installation and Logistics Department of MCLB Barstow, said the base was the Marine Corps winner of the Secretary of the Navy Award for Environmental Quality – Industrial Installation earlier in 2017. Of all Marine Corps industrial facilities, MCLB Barstow had the best programs for sustaining mission readiness through cost-effective environmental conservation.
Fejeran said winning the SecNav award put the base in contention for the SecDef award, which compared the winners of each military Service’s awards worldwide.
The media release from DOD announcing the winners of the 2017 SecDef Environmental Award described the origin of the award and the criteria used to judge a military installation’s eligibility:
“Established in 1962, the Secretary of Defense Environmental Awards recognize outstanding environmental practices that not only protect the environment, promote efficiency, and improve quality of life, but also support mission readiness. Each year, DoD selects individuals, teams and installations that stand out in their ability to achieve these objectives.”
The release cites some of the reasons MCLB Barstow was awarded the SecDef Environmental Award under the category of Environmental Quality, Industrial Installation:
“Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California implemented a highly successful waste management program to reduce hazardous material usage, reduce the generation of hazardous waste, and increase diversion of non-hazardous solid waste on the installation.”
One form of that “non-hazardous solid waste” is the sand used to strip military vehicles of paint at Production Plant Barstow, Marine Depot Maintenance Command.
“Normally we generate about one million pounds of garnet blast a year (from the Yermo Annex of MCLBB), but we’ve reduced that amount to zero,” Fejeran said. “We did that by having a contractor haul away the used garnet blast to make cement blocks and bricks.”
Miguel Arandaguillen, environmental services supervisor for I&L, said they have aggressively pursued ways to recycle waste rather than toss it out.
“We’ve been more proactive in looking at materials we can turn in as scrap metal and co-mingled materials waste and do our part to reduce the amount of trash going into the landfill,” Arandaguillen said. “We have one project coming up where building 163 is going to be demolished, and that’s pretty much all metal, aluminum walls and the steel in the beams. We are going to recycle as much of that as possible.”
The other trash generated by the base has also been reduced by as much at 87 percent compared to the 2001 level because of the blue recycling trash cans seen outside of all offices aboard base.
“We collect the blue bins every Wednesday containing paper and other recyclable material and take it to Victorville, Calif., to the MRF (mixed recyclables facility),” said Arandaguillen.
Another large commodity is cardboard, especially from the Yermo Annex because they do a lot of shipping and have a lot of cardboard to dispose of.
“We do get money for the recyclable materials, but then we also have to pay a fee to use the MRF, so our goal is to break even on those materials,” Arandaguillen said.
Fejeran pointed out that even though the SecDef release cited reduction in waste as a major reason MCLB Barstow won the award, all of the environmental programs operated by MCLB Barstow were scrutinized.
“The SecDef and SecNav awards are for everything we do here under the air program, the water program, and the natural and cultural resources programs,” he said.
Both Fejeran and Arnadaguillen said they are gratified and surprised by the awards.
“We were surprised we won just because we were doing our job,” Fejeran said. “We were very shorthanded, but we had to do what we had to do.”
“I think we deserve the award for all the work we’ve done,” Arandaguillen said, “but now we have to do a better job just to stay on top because now they’ll be watching us closely.”
Neither of the two are taking credit for the awards; however, both credit the entire environmental team.
“It is the work of everybody in the Environmental Division to get the award, not just the supervisors, but the 14 employees in environmental who made our program work,” Fejeran said.
Dexter Robeson, director, Environmental Division, also credits the win to teamwork. “The entire environmental team has worked extremely hard the past few years to improve and sustain their programs,” he said, “and I’m very excited that their success is being recognized with these awards.”
Major Stacey Colón, deputy director, Environmental Division, also noted the role of the installation in receiving the award. “Many of the achievements of the program managers and supervisory team wouldn’t have been possible without the support of everyone aboard the installation. Maintaining a culture of environmental stewardship takes everyone’s participation.”
The SecNav Environmental Award will be presented during a ceremony at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington June 29. The SecDef Environmental Award will be presented at a time and place to be determined.
| Date Taken: | 05.25.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.25.2017 13:35 |
| Story ID: | 235281 |
| Location: | MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 70 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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