by Jim Frisinger,
Fort Worth District Public Affairs
FORT WORTH, Texas – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reorganized much of its environmental and planning functions across three districts in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas within the Southwestern Division into a new Regional Planning and Environmental Center. The new organization, managed by the Fort Worth District, will combine 105 employees from the Fort Worth, Tulsa and Galveston Districts.
The new center supports a wide variety of USACE missions. These include cleaning up formerly used defense sites, managing flood risk, restoring ecosystems and supporting new navigation projects. RPEC technical and study managers lead economic, environmental and planning components required to support civil works projects. Typical are preparation of National Environmental Policy Act or feasibility study documents for such projects as the Dallas Floodway, the Sabine Pass to Galveston Bay coastal flood risk management, and Brazos Island Harbor navigation near Brownsville, Texas.
Under the new structure, each district is home to some of the RPEC branch or section chiefs. Each section or branch will serve all of RPEC, and in many cases will be staffed with individuals from more than one geographic location. The new organization became fully operational Feb. 9. The staff became Fort Worth District employees, regardless of whether their duty station is Tulsa, Galveston or Fort Worth.
“In these fiscally restrained times, we must maintain core competencies, disciplines and abilities in the environmental and planning fields to ensure we keep a robust regional organization that can deliver quality service,” said Eric Verwers, RPEC director.
The creation of RPEC supports two goals:
· To consistently deliver high-quality products regionally to all the local sponsors and military services the three districts serve.
· To maintain a high level of competencies in planning and environmental fields.
It also furthers USACE nationwide goals to execute missions more efficiently and effectively under Civil Works Transformation.