# Big turn-ins, big effort for West region in 2022

/ Published Nov. 2, 2022
BATTLE CREEK, Mich., 
Another year, another solid contribution to the military’s reverse logistics needs courtesy of the civil servants representing Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services West region in fiscal 2022.

“The outstanding work of our team helped DLA remain the destination of choice for the nation’s warfighters when disposing of unneeded equipment and hazardous materials at bases spread across the nation’s largest geographic region,” said Region Director Christopher Buchanan. “I am thankful to lead such a committed group of professionals who keep warfighter support first. All of our locations made impressive contributions this past year, and I applaud the team’s focus and resilience.” 

The following represent just a few of the West region’s many highlights from the fiscal year.

West’s performance metrics improved overall during FY22, including a higher total property receipt count, a drop in average customer wait time, higher Reutilization, Transfer and Donation figures, and a jump in sales receipts, with both RTD and Sales earning top marks when compared among all the major sub-command’s geographic regions.

An Air Force-mandated closure of the property disposal site at Hill Air Force Base in Utah was completed while finding “soft landing” jobs for the 38 employees assigned there, including many earning new positions with local DLA entities and other base tenant commands. Region and area leaders provided exhaustive training to Hill-area customers to assure Air Force entities that Barstow-based disposal services representatives would continue to service the site and that closure was not expected to impact day-to-day operations there.

The teams at disposal sites in Barstow, San Diego and Tucson worked in tandem on a lengthy effort to find new destinations for unneeded U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction materials. By the end of the fiscal year, the project had seen the receipt and processing of nearly 1,200 trucks loaded with excess construction material and the region had reutilized items with an original acquisition value of $32 million, with another nearly $17 million in items going to sales. The reuse and sales returned funds to the government and provided no-cost material to the Department of Interior and the Texas State Agency for Surplus Property for various construction projects.

Barstow handled a variety of noteworthy turn ins, including Receipt in Place of 75 unserviceable Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles originally worth $49 million and another 49 Assault Amphibious Vehicles worth $171 million at nearby Yermo Annex. According to leaders, the customer had several MRAPs and AAVs needing disposal, but a sizeable number of vehicles could not be sent to the agency’s demilitarization facility in Tucson without the spall liners removed. Instead, the team coordinated through the command’s liaison to the Marine Corps to send 60 MRAPS and 12 AAVs as range targets to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Additional significant turn ins by the Barstow team included nearly 140,000 pairs of boots and an estimated 1.5 million lines of divestiture property from the Marine Corps, including camouflage netting sent to Argentina and Romania through the Foreign Military Sales program. 

Scrap removals across the region were robust, including 344 trucks totaling 11.6 million pounds at the Sierra site in California and eight barges and 201 trucks that removed submarine scrap from Puget Sound Naval Shipyard totaling 19.5 million pounds.

The Camp Pendleton team handled a unique turn in – an unserviceable locomotive at Port Hueneme that the customer claimed they had been trying to get rid of for 20 years. A representative provided guidance, coordinated with the sales office, conducted a receipt in place and the hulk was ultimately sold.

And finally, in what may be a first, the San Joaquin site received a perfect score during a visit from a headquarters Environmental Effectiveness Review team, who visited the site to grade efforts ranging from training requirements compliance, audit readiness and proper documentation of evidential matter, and adherence to standard operating procedures. The EER team could not recall previously awarding a perfect score.

“This is direct result of the Environmental team working cohesively with all parties, generators, and especially with one another in conjunction with their site supervisor,” Buchanan wrote. “They have held several team meetings in which all concerns are addressed, and this team strives to follow every operational SOP without deviation.”