Sometimes the most complex issues require a simple approach.
At Fort Leonard Wood the environmental strategy and management at the installation relies on a plan-do-check-act approach. Through this systematic four-step process, and the accompanying procedures used to implement it, the team at the 63,000-acre installation support a wide range of critical training functions in an environmentally and archeologically significant location.
“Fort Leonard Wood’s principal environmental goal is to go beyond compliance by evaluating environmental risk and preventing activities from adversely impacting the natural and cultural resources,” said Charlie Neel, Fort Leonard Wood’s Environmental Division chief. “Using this approach and related methods, the installation has achieved an exceptional compliance record without a single notice of violation in over a decade.”
One area of success at the installation is working with neighboring communities to meet National Environmental Policy Act requirements, including assisting the bordering towns of Waynesville and St. Robert with the development of a regional airport located on Fort Leonard Wood. The team also completed environmental reviews to allow for mission-critical access to the Lake of the Ozarks Recreation Area along with an easement with Camden County, Missouri.
“Fort Leonard Wood’s environmental management encompasses everything from environmental considerations to compliance, conservation, and cleanup work,” Neel said. “Protecting the environment while accomplishing the military mission of the installation goes beyond regulations and compliance. It includes quality of life for our military service members, family members, civilians, and retirees. It includes ensuring that military lands are available for the mission for the long term and, when possible, for the equitable use by the public.”
In addition to Earth Day and National Volunteer Week outreach activities, Fort Leonard Wood also hosted a Catfish Derby at the Stone Mill Spring Branch recreation area, which drew around 100 youth participants to a day of fishing with prizes and angling education and conservation information.
During the past year, environmental staff hosted more than 30 tribal members of the Osage Nation supporting their tour of Osage heritage sites on Fort Leonard Wood, which is a part of their tribal ancestral homelands. The visit included tours of caves, rock art, burial sites, and natural springs.
A team from Fort Leonard Wood worked with the Missouri Department of Conservation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to mitigate adverse effects during the repair of a low-water dam. Fort Leonard Wood’s team constructed an aquatic organism passage (or dam bypass) allowing species to move past the dam, including two endangered species in that section of the river, the Spectaclecase mussel and the Eastern Hellbender salamander.
The mitigations also called for the placement of 400 large flat rocks placed in a stable area to provide habitat for the salamanders. In addition, four Hellbenders were found and retrieved and relocated safely away from the project, and about 100 juveniles are being raised in captivity for eventual release back into the Big Piney River.
The Fort Leonard Wood team is also developing an assessment and management plan for the 27 species of freshwater mussels at the installation, including the Spectaclecase and the Scaleshell mussels, both listed as endangered.
“We are devising a comprehensive mussel management plan, which will include mussel and fish host surveys which will then be used to produce a biological assessment for our federally listed mussel species, the Spectaclecase and Scaleshell mussels,” said Kenton Lohraff, Fort Leonard Wood’s Natural Resources Branch chief. “Around North America, many freshwater mussels are declining in population and are thought to be among the most sensitive species to changing environments.”
An agreement between Fort Leonard Wood and the Mark Twain National Forest to share resources in both wildland fire suppression and prescribed fire management led to an historic 4,100-acre prescribed fire across their shared boundaries in March 2023.
“Environmentally, prescribed fire directly enhances glade and grassland ecosystems that rely on fire as a natural part of the natural cycle. This also benefits the threatened and endangered species that rely on the healthy habitats that fire helps to promote,” Lohraff said. “Prescribed fires also allow us to reduce wildland fire threats to the natural assets and communities around them.”
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