The Japan Engineer District (JED) offers a wide range of in-house and contract services to satisfy our customers' environmental needs and requirements. Available services include, but are not limited to the following:

Asbestos/Lead Based Paint (LBP)

The Japan Engineer District can provide a full spectrum of asbestos and LBP services, including building inspections, management planning, and abatement. JED has a staff of certified in-house professionals that can assist you in clarifying regulatory requirements, developing project scopes, as well as providing estimated costs and schedules.

Our environmental services perform the inspections with certified professionals and samples are analyzed through accredited laboratories. Abatement (removal, encapsulation, enclosure, and encasement) is designed and performed using our environmental services contractors through a competitive bidding process.

Installation staff must be available to coordinate uninterrupted access to the site for the contractor or JED staff. Costs vary depending upon the scope of the project, complexity of the work, size of the area, and accessibility.

Environmental Compliance Testing

The Japan Environmental Governing Standards (JEGS) establishes criteria and performance standards for DOD owned and operated facilities. Some of these criteria cover steam/hot water generating units; incinerators; boilers; units containing ozone depleting substances (ODS); petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) storage facilities, pipeline and transport systems; and hazardous materials storage facilities. These criteria were established to control or minimize pollution of the air, soil and water and to meet both US and host nation laws and regulations, applicable treaties and DoD and service component policies.

Air emission standards and measuring methods for sulfur dioxides, soot and dusts (particulate matter), and nitrogen oxides are specifically stated in the JEGS. The JEGS also requires that UST and piping systems without leak detection systems be tightness tested annually until upgraded or replaced with systems that meet performance standards. The same is true for hazardous material tanks and pipelines. The performance of these facilities to meet the baseline standards can only be determined through individual testing in accordance with approved test methods.

The Japan Engineer District can provide full-service support, which may include project scoping, cost estimating, and contract support including service contract award, administration and supervision.

Costs can vary greatly depending upon the scope of the project. Generally, consolidation of work requirements will reduce project administration and supervision costs.

Environmental Management Plans

Environmental management plans assist military installations and activities in complying with the JEGS by providing inventories and maps of current resources, identifying opportunities for improvement or resolution, identifying potential projects for programming and budgeting purposes, developing implementation plans, and generally providing the types of information necessary to manage and bring the environmental areas of concern into compliance. The Japan Engineer District can either develop these management plans utilizing in-house resources or through environmental service contracts.

Below is a sampling of the types of management plans prepared by the Japan Engineer District.

The Japan Engineer District can provide full-service support, including an initial consultation to determine statutory and/or policy requirements, the scope of the management plan, as well as time and cost factors. Costs to prepare these plans vary based on the number of features managed and whether or not surveys and inventories are also required.

Environmental Site Assessments and Investigations

Environmental Site Assessments (ESA) are scientifically defensible studies commonly performed on sites where historical land uses indicate the potential for soil and/or groundwater contamination. ESA's may include physical, chemical and/or biological analyses to determine the existing conditions of both the site itself, as well as background contamination on sites expected to be uncontaminated. The threshold for the need to remediate, and the urgency of the effort, are decisions that vary widely from site to site and are heavily influenced by both U.S. and host nation laws and regulations, applicable treaties (including SOFA), and DoD and service component policies.

ESA's are normally undertaken in progressive three phases. Phase I consists of a Preliminary Assessment (PA) that assembles readily available information about a site and its surrounding area. The PA is designed to distinguish, based on limited data, between sites that pose little or no threat to human health and the environment and sites that may pose a threat and therefore require further investigation. Phase II is a Site Investigation (SI) where investigators typically collect environmental and waste samples to determine what hazardous substances are present at a site and whether these substances are being released into the environment. Phase III is a remedial investigation/feasibility study (RI/FS) which serves as the mechanism for collecting data to fully characterize site conditions, determine the precise nature of the waste, quantitatively assess the risk to human health and the environment, conduct treatability testing to evaluate the potential performance and cost of available treatment technologies, and develop, screen, and evaluate alternative remedial actions.

The Japan Engineer District can provide full-service support, from an initial consultation to determine whether a site warrants investigation through complete design and execution of an extensive RI/FS.

There are no limitations aside from potential conflicts with, or the interpretation of remediation requirements under, Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 4715.8, "Remediation of Environmental Contamination Outside the United States," dated 1 November 2013.

Costs can vary greatly depending upon the scope of the project and the nature of the contamination, from a few thousand dollars for a simple Preliminary Assessment performed on a small site, to possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars for a highly complicated RI/FS performed on a large, heavily contaminated site.

Environmental Studies and Surveys

Virtually every chapter of the Japan Environmental Governing Standards (JEGS), reinforced by specific service component regulations and policies, requires a wide variety of environmental studies and surveys be completed and continually updated in order to effectively manage the environmental program on a U.S. military installation.

Depending upon the applicability, availability and quality of any prior studies and surveys within the media that is under investigation, a scientifically defensible study or survey design is developed that fully addresses the compliance needs of the military installation, including the provision of all relevant spatial and non-spatial data in a format that is compatible with the installation's geographic information system (GIS), thereby allowing the installation to maintain both the currency and value of the data.

The Japan Engineer District can provide full-service support, from an initial consultation to determine statutory and/or policy requirements, the scope of the study or survey, as well as estimated time and cost factors. Sample studies and surveys include:

•  Air emission source inventories and air quality studies
• Surveys of drinking water systems and development of emergency contingency plans
• Water resources studies
• Wastewater quality / wastewater treatment optimization studies
• Radon testing and monitoring 
• Natural and cultural resource inventories and monitoring surveys
• Environmental impact analysis of proposed activities and/or construction projects
• Hazardous waste stream analyses
• Treatability studies
• Waste collection and diversion optimization studies
• Underground storage tank tightness testing investigations

Costs for studies or surveys can vary widely depending upon the scope and nature of the project, from a few thousand dollars for an Environmental Assessment of a small proposed construction project to hundreds of thousands of dollars for an extensive installation-wide survey of lead-based paint or asbestos containing materials.

Environmental Training

The Japan Engineer District prepares an Environmental Training Survey annually to determine the training needs of all services. This survey is used to consolidate the training requirements for all interested parties and allows us to initiate training schedules.

Our environmental training coordinator procures the training services and coordinates the training for you (i.e., training vendor, location, fees, and dates). Typical training includes:

• Asbestos (Inspector, Management Planner, Contractor/Supervisor, Project Designer, Hazard Awareness, and Worker courses)
• Lead Based Paint (Inspector, Risk Assessor, Contractor/Supervisor, Designer, Awareness, Worker courses)
• Hazardous Waste Operator (HAZWOPER)

The costs vary depending on the enrollment count, course length, location, scope of the training, and bilingual requirements.