The Army has recognized Holston Army Ammunition Plant for its environmental stewardship.
A Joint Munitions Command installation, Holston received honorable mention in the 2010 Secretary of the Army Environmental Awards Program in the category of Environmental Quality, Industrial Installation.
These awards represent the highest honor in the field of environmental science and sustainability conferred by the Army.
This distinguished award recognized HSAAP's efforts in environmental management to promote production mission support with minimal environmental impact.
"I submitted an application for this award because I thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase what we've done to bring Holston's performance into the 21st century. We wanted to show what the Army has 'bought' for these expenditures," said Bob Winstead, environmental manager at BAE SYSTEMS Ordnance Systems Inc., contractor at Holston.
The award recognizes Holston's efforts to implement controls to reduce impacts from its mission work of manufacturing high explosive compounds for JMC.
First, to comply with new regulations from the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, HSAAP completely replaced the emissions control equipment of its coal-fire steam plant.
HSAAP also developed a program with stakeholders, which included the state of Tennessee and several Army commands, to reduce trace amounts of RDX, an explosive/propellant, in its industrial wastewater by 90 percent.
And, HSAAP incorporated environmental incentives into key modernization initiatives to ensure future sustainability of the next generation of insensitive munitions, which contain new compounds that require proper permitting, treatment and disposal.
These activities have benefitted Holston by helping Army and contractor staffs successfully meet or exceed the environmental requirements of manufacturing millions of pounds of explosives every year as well as supporting more than $200 million in modernization projects in a regulatory environment of unprecedented change and complexity.
"These improvements are not so much a matter of money, but the ability to keep producing our products in the continental United States into the future," Winstead stressed.
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