Environmental Excellence in Action

Meet the 2026 Environmental Award Winners

From assessing risks at complex cleanup sites to addressing decades-old contamination in an island community and improving the science behind regulatory decisions, the recipients of the 2026 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Environmental Awards demonstrate the reach and impact of USACE’s environmental mission.

This year, USACE recognized Grace Greenberg, senior environmental risk assessor with the New England District, as Environmental Professional of the Year; the Aua Fuel Farm Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) Remediation Team with the Environmental Restoration Award; and the Wetlands Regulatory Assistance Program (WRAP) Team with the Environmental Quality Award.

“These awards recognize our teammates for their significant contributions toward leveraging environmental stewardship as a force multiplier — enhancing military readiness and strengthening strategic partnerships while protecting the communities and natural resources affected by our missions,” said Chaela Smith, USACE Environmental Division chief.

For Greenberg, that means drawing on more than two decades of experience in human health and ecological risk assessment to help project teams understand environmental risks and make defensible cleanup decisions. Beyond her project work, she is helping build that expertise across USACE through technical collaboration and training.

For the Aua Fuel Farm FUDS team, the mission took them to the Village of Aua in American Samoa, where petroleum contamination from a former World War II Navy fuel farm was now buried beneath and around a community that had been developed on the site. The team navigated significant technical and logistical challenges to remove and treat contamination, reduce risks to residents and help protect nearby Pago Pago Harbor.

The WRAP Team confronted a different kind of problem: a critical gap in the hydroacoustic data used to evaluate how underwater sound may affect threatened and endangered species. Their research is providing regulators with better science to make more efficient and consistent Endangered Species Act effects determinations, with potential benefits for Department of the Army permitting nationwide.

“Whether we are restoring contaminated property, improving the science behind our decisions or developing the expertise our teams need to tackle complex projects, our environmental work is part of successful mission delivery,” Smith said. “These recipients show the difference that expertise, collaboration and a commitment to public service can make and the value of upholding environmental excellence.”

Click on the tabs to the left (or above if on mobile) to learn more about the 2026 USACE Environmental Award recipients and the people, partnerships and challenges behind their work.

Sound Science, Better Decisions: Greenberg named Environmental Professional of the Year

A risk assessment can shape the course of an environmental cleanup, determining whether a site requires additional investigation or whether the available science supports proceeding with site cleanup or closeout. For Grace Greenberg, getting that decision right means looking beyond the numbers to understand the assumptions behind them.

That scrutiny has helped the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) New England District senior risk environmental assessor resolve difficult technical questions, build consensus among stakeholders and keep environmental projects moving — contributions that earned her recognition as the 2026 USACE Environmental Professional of the Year.

Greenberg assesses potential human health and ecological risks in support of remedial investigations conducted under the Formerly Used Defense Sites, Base Realignment and Closure and Superfund programs. Those assessments help determine whether contamination presents an unacceptable risk and, ultimately, what response may be necessary.

“There’s always a degree of unknown,” Greenberg said. “But when we stack up all our various lines of evidence to support one decision or another, I think sharing that gives people peace of mind that our decisions are supported by the data. We’re relying on basic principles of chemistry, geology, hydrogeology and toxicology and bringing all those disciplines together so that our decisions are more founded and more grounded, despite the uncertainties.”

That combination of scientific rigor and communication is particularly valuable when project teams, regulators, property owners and other stakeholders approach a problem from different perspectives.

“What makes Grace stand out is that she’s such a positive person,” said Dion Lewis, chief of the New England District Geoenvironmental Branch’s Chemistry and Risk Assessment Section, who nominated Greenberg for the award. “She is able to have contentious conversations with various stakeholders because she really knows her stuff and has a positive outlook. That combination allows for common ground to be reached.”

Finding a defensible path forward

On one project, Greenberg’s close review of a remedial investigation uncovered assumptions in the contractor’s risk calculations that warranted another look. She found, among other issues, that chemicals had been treated as though they affected the same target organ when they did not. Greenberg recalculated the risks and worked with district geologists to evaluate additional lines of evidence demonstrating that inadvertent releases during historical operations did not pose a significant risk.

Her analysis changed the project team’s understanding of the potential risk and supported a determination that further action was not warranted. Rather than committing additional resources to address a risk the evidence did not support, the team was able to move the project forward.

For Greenberg, that distinction matters. Environmental protection does not necessarily improve by continuing to investigate a potential risk after the scientific evidence demonstrates it is not significant.

“We’re working within the EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency) framework to investigate and cleanup sites,” she said. “We’re trying to speed up the processes that we can speed up within that framework because sometimes we tend to delay things when there are opportunities to actually get things done quicker.”

Her goal, she said, is straightforward: “I just want to close projects.”

That same focus on moving projects toward defensible decisions has carried into other efforts. When technical review comments threatened the schedule for one project, Greenberg and another project delivery team member stepped in to help rewrite portions of a key planning document. Greenberg took responsibility for sections addressing the investigation history, risk, overall protectiveness and compliance with applicable requirements, helping the team maintain its schedule.

On another project, Greenberg evaluated proposed changes to environmental cleanup limits. Her review of the underlying science found that the proposed limits were not technically supported, and her analysis and diplomacy helped the project team reach a defensible path forward with stakeholders.

She has also taken a lead role in resolving complex technical comments during a periodic review of a cleanup involving multiple parties with competing interests. Greenberg addressed some of the most challenging questions and helped the project team work through differing perspectives to reach a path forward.

Experience from a different perspective

Greenberg brought more than 20 years of consulting experience to USACE when she joined the New England District in 2023. She holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and sociology and a Master of Public Health from Columbia University.

After spending much of her career in consulting, Greenberg said she was interested in seeing environmental decision-making from the public side and gaining a deeper understanding about the regulatory and programmatic considerations behind those decisions. The work allows her to apply the consulting and risk assessment skills she has developed throughout her career, she said, but “in a different arena.”

Building consistency across USACE

Her influence now extends beyond individual projects. Greenberg participates in the USACE Risk Assessment Technical Working Group and has helped train project managers on risk assessment under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and the FUDS program. She is also supporting broader efforts to strengthen risk-assessment expertise across USACE.

“I’m a big fan of consistency,” Greenberg said. Sharing approaches across the organization, she explained, helps ensure risk assessments are conducted consistently and reduces unnecessary uncertainty when projects face similar technical questions.

She also helped support development of a new Relative Risk Site Evaluation calculator for the FUDS program. The tool is intended for integration into the FUDS Management Information System to help USACE prioritize environmental restoration activities across the enterprise.

A lifelong commitment to the science

Lewis said Greenberg’s willingness to continue learning is as important as the expertise she already brings to her project teams.

“She just loves what she does, and that’s contagious,” he said. “During our section meetings, we talk about lessons learned, and she brings the whole team forward sharing newly acquired lessons with great enthusiasm. Her excitement in the science is contagious, and she’s clearly a lifelong learner.”

For Greenberg, that enthusiasm comes back to the science and the opportunity to use it to reach sound decisions.

“I love the fact that the decision-making process is based on science,” Greenberg said. “I love that you can put arguments together, that are logical in nature, to help support a decision.”

Building Trust, Restoring Aua: FUDS team earns 2026 Environmental Restoration Award

For decades, the residents of Aua Village in American Samoa lived above remnants of a World War II-era Navy fuel farm, where buried tanks, pipelines and petroleum contamination remained beneath homes, roads, a school and family burial sites.

Removing contamination left behind by the former fuel farm would require years of investigation and cleanup by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). But because that contamination lay beneath an established village, making progress also depended on something less easily measured: earning the trust of residents asked repeatedly to allow crews onto their land.

The project delivery team behind that effort has been recognized with USACE’s 2026 Environmental Restoration Award for its work to reduce environmental and human health risks at the Aua Fuel Farm Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) on Tutuila Island.

The award recognizes a multiphase effort that removed former fuel infrastructure and petroleum contamination while navigating cultural considerations, difficult site conditions, regulatory hurdles and the logistical challenges of performing environmental restoration on a remote Pacific island.

“The communication and relationship that we established with the community and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) really made a difference,” said Linoshka Soto Perez, project manager for the Aua Fuel Farm project. “Showing progress also helped a lot.”

A wartime legacy beneath a village

The Navy constructed the Aua Fuel Farm in 1943 to store and distribute fuel in support of Naval Station Tutuila during World War II. The approximately 2.85-acre facility included 12 aboveground storage tanks, 13 pump houses and roughly 7,500 feet of pipeline.

After the war, the tanks were removed from inventory and are believed to have been crushed, folded and buried in place. Aua Village subsequently developed over the former fuel farm.

USACE began investigating the property under the FUDS program in the early 1990s. The program addresses environmental contamination and other hazards resulting from past Department of War activities at properties no longer under military control.

Earlier investigations and response actions removed some tank remnants and contaminated soil, but petroleum remained beneath portions of the village. The issue resurfaced in 2018 when the American Samoa Power Authority encountered buried tank remnants while installing sewer lines.

The discovery halted work and led to another USACE investigation. In 2019, crews removed remnants of three tanks, located the current or former positions of all 12 tanks, collected soil samples and installed 16 groundwater monitoring wells. Investigators found petroleum in subsurface soil at all 12 tank sites and determined it was mobile and being transported by groundwater.

The location made remediation especially complicated.

Homes, roads, utilities, streams, a school and family burial sites had been built over or near portions of the former fuel farm. Those features restricted where crews could excavate and meant the team had to work closely with residents and village leaders to gain access.

In American Samoa, Soto Perez explained, land ownership and decision-making can involve village chiefs, or matais, and councils. Agreements could become more complicated as land passed among generations.

USACE personnel also had to account for the community’s experience with a problem that had persisted for decades.

Richard Tanaka, Honolulu District FUDS program manager, said the team needed to be candid about what the program could accomplish while demonstrating that USACE intended to remain a reliable partner.

“You can help at least gain enough trust to say, ‘Hey, we’re here. We want to be partners. We definitely want to listen to you,’” Tanaka said.

That trust grew as residents saw work being completed.

Instead of waiting until every issue across the former fuel farm could be addressed at once, the team moved through a series of focused investigations and removal actions. Soto Perez said the visible progress helped strengthen relationships and secure the access needed for later phases.

In 2021, crews removed and disposed of tank remnants at six locations and excavated additional contaminated soil at three others. Approximately 8,200 cubic yards of petroleum-contaminated soil were excavated, thermally treated and reused as backfill. The team also removed petroleum-impacted groundwater and used an oxygen release compound to enhance biodegradation of remaining hydrocarbons.

The work also uncovered another piece of the former fuel system. Crews encountered sections of buried pipeline, including segments from which petroleum product was still flowing.

Racing the rainy season

Removing that pipeline became the focus of the project’s next major phase.

Then, late in the planning process, the team encountered an unexpected regulatory challenge.

In November 2023, the planned National Environmental Policy Act categorical exclusion was determined to be insufficient for the work. A full environmental assessment would be required before the pipeline removal could proceed.

The change threatened to delay construction for about a year.

Time mattered. The team needed to complete fieldwork before the October 2024 rainy season and while Onososopo Park remained available as a temporary soil treatment area. Losing access to the park would have forced the operation to relocate about 12 miles away, increasing costs and sending trucks carrying excavated material along the island’s primary two-lane highway.

Rather than accept the delay, the team assembled specialists from across USACE and partner agencies to complete the environmental assessment on an accelerated schedule. The process, which could have taken about a year, was completed in approximately five months.

The effort reflected the unusually broad geographic reach of the project delivery team. Specialists supporting the work were located across multiple USACE districts and time zones, including Hawaii, Japan, the continental United States and, at one point, Europe.

“We are very fortunate to have so many wonderful professionals,” Tanaka said. “But you need to have all these really good relationships to make sure that you can get on everybody’s schedules, to be able to get their time and attention to address emerging problems.”

With the assessment complete, fieldwork moved forward in 2024. Crews removed 248 linear feet of former fuel pipeline and excavated and thermally treated another 2,089 cubic yards of petroleum-contaminated soil. More than 1 million gallons of groundwater were extracted, treated and discharged to the sanitary sewer system.

The work removed the primary remaining source of mobile petroleum contamination accessible to the project team and helped protect nearby Pago Pago Harbor, which supports sensitive coral reef habitat.

Progress built on partnership

The project involved extensive coordination with the American Samoa EPA, American Samoa Power Authority, U.S. EPA, National Marine Fisheries Service, American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, village leaders and residents.

Soto Perez said American Samoa EPA and community members remained closely engaged, asking for detailed information about groundwater and soil sampling and following the project’s progress.

“This community, they were very involved and very present and very vocal about what they wanted and what they were expecting from the Corps,” she said.

That involvement shaped how the team approached the work.

Tanaka described community engagement at FUDS properties as a “very delicate situation.” The program is designed to reduce risk from past military activities, he said, but practical limits can prevent USACE from removing every remnant of former infrastructure. Building durable relationships requires being clear about those limits while listening to residents and following through on commitments.

At Aua, some portions of the former pipeline and contaminated soil remain inaccessible because they lie beneath structures, roads, graves, utilities, streams and drainage features. Human health risk assessments determined the remaining petroleum impacts do not pose an unacceptable risk to residential receptors under current conditions. If future construction makes previously inaccessible areas reachable, USACE can reassess whether additional work is warranted.

In 2025, USACE also decommissioned 32 groundwater monitoring wells after completing the project’s risk evaluation in coordination with American Samoa EPA.

For Soto Perez, who served as a technical specialist on the project before becoming its project manager, the result is more than a collection of excavation quantities and sampling results.

“We cleaned up the site the best we could and provided a safe place for the community,” she said, “so that they don’t need to be worried if there’s any contamination that could be affecting them.”

The project also helped clear the way for sewer infrastructure improvements in Aua Village. The former soil treatment area is planned for community use as a park and football field.

Tanaka said the project demonstrated the importance of relationships at every level, from residents and territorial agencies to technical specialists and USACE leadership.

For a cleanup that unfolded over years, across thousands of miles and beneath the everyday life of a village, those relationships ultimately helped turn incremental progress into a completed restoration project.

“Good relationships” can be difficult to quantify, Tanaka said. “Often, it’s priceless.”

Congratulations to the AUA Fuels Farm FUDS Remediation Team, winners of the 2026 USACE Environmental Restoration Award. Members include:

• Richard Tanaka, FUDS program manager, Honolulu District
• Linoshka Soto Perez, project manager, St. Louis District
• Michael Desilets, contracting officer’s representative, Pacific Ocean Division
• Jacob Haddad, Office of Counsel, Pacific Ocean Division
• Kevin Pien, NEPA project manager, Pacific Ocean Division
• Lisa Scott, Environmental chief, Pacific Ocean Division
• Sharla Nakashima, chemist, Pacific Ocean Division
• Miriam Koyanagi, safety specialist, Pacific Ocean Division
• Tristin Suetsugu, Contracting chief, Pacific Ocean Division
• Brysen Calkins, Cost Engineering chief, Pacific Ocean Division
• Madelyn Martinez, biologist, Seattle District
• Cheryl Webster, geologist and quality assurance representative, Albuquerque District

Turning Research into Results: USACE team recognized for improving waterfront permitting

When a homeowner applies for a permit to build or repair a dock along the Atlantic coast, something as routine as driving a small timber pile requires an environmental review. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) team recognized with the 2026 Environmental Quality Award found a way to make that review faster and more accurate without compromising protections for endangered species.

The multidisciplinary Wetlands Regulatory Assistance Program (WRAP) team brought together regulatory professionals and researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), North Atlantic Division, New England District and Baltimore District. Working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the team developed better underwater sound data for small-diameter timber and composite pile driving.

The work gives USACE regulators more reliable information for determining whether pile driving associated with docks and other waterfront construction could affect species protected under the Endangered Species Act. It also can reduce unnecessary delays and restrictions for property owners and other permit applicants.

While the research addressed a specific technical data gap, Naomi Handell, North Atlantic Division regulatory program manager, said its impact is much broader because small-diameter timber piles are common in residential waterfront projects.

“Many residential docks are constructed with small piles,” Handell said, “so this data gap was an issue for many permit applications within our area of responsibility because it could lead to delays in our permit decision process.”

A data gap emerges

The problem emerged after NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office revised its programmatic Endangered Species Act consultation with North Atlantic Division in 2024. The revision required acoustic analysis for pile installations that previously had been excluded when piles were 12 inches in diameter or smaller.

Pile driving generates underwater noise that can affect marine life. Depending on the species and sound level, those effects can range from behavioral changes to hearing damage or, at extreme levels, mortality, said Dr. Adrian Doran, a research physical scientist with ERDC’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. Regulators use acoustic analyses to determine whether a proposed activity is likely to affect protected species and whether measures are needed to reduce those effects.

But when the new requirement took effect, reviewers lacked reliable acoustic data for the small timber piles used in many docks.

Existing data came from different pile sizes, types and environments. In some cases, regulators also had to seek estimates from applicants, who often could not provide the information because they had not yet hired a construction contractor. The uncertainty could produce overly conservative estimates of environmental effects, potentially leading to longer consultations or restrictions that more accurate data might show were unnecessary.

Doran compared the mismatch to using sound data from pile driving for a large offshore wind project to estimate the effects of installing piles for a small waterfront dock.

“It’s not quite the same,” he said.

Filling the gap with field research

North Atlantic Division identified the need for better data and provided funding to ERDC to investigate. During the first six months of fiscal 2025, researchers reviewed published underwater sound data for plastic and timber piles 12 inches or smaller. Although they found potentially useful measurements, the data varied too widely to provide the reliable estimates regulators needed.

The next step was to collect the missing information.

ERDC already had a research partnership with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, where researchers were conducting similar acoustic measurements. The teams found an efficient way to build on that work by adding the small timber piles USACE needed to the existing effort.

“They were already recording sound levels associated with this activity, and we were able to use that to get the data we needed,” Doran said.

Field data collection was completed in October 2025 at Woods Hole, where researchers recorded acoustic signatures from vibratory and impact pile driving involving 10-inch timber piles, 12-inch timber piles and 24-inch composite piles. They measured sound at multiple distances to determine how it diminished as it traveled through the surrounding water. The resulting analysis included factors regulators need for their reviews, such as peak sound level, root-mean-square sound level, sound exposure level and transmission loss.

Turning research into a regulatory tool

The research has since moved quickly toward practical use. The findings are supporting development of a North Atlantic Division tool for making “not likely to adversely affect” determinations under the Endangered Species Act. The team is also working with NOAA’s Office of Protected Resources to improve the broader proxy database by removing ambiguities and developing recommended values based on pile type and size.

That connection between research and day-to-day regulatory work is a central reason the project stood out, Doran said.

“The data we produced can go directly into the workflow that the regulatory teams use,” he said. “They can use these numbers right away.”

For regulators, better data means greater confidence in determining when protections are warranted and when they are not. It also gives permit applicants a more predictable review based on measurements that better reflect the work they actually propose.

Handell said that balance is important to the Regulatory Program, which evaluates permit applications for work in waters of the United States while meeting federal environmental protection requirements.

“It’s really great that we have access to the folks at ERDC who can do these studies and gather the science and the information that we need for our day-to-day reviews,” Handell said. That connection helps USACE use the best available information “to protect natural resources and balance that with the proposed work that the regulated public wants to do.”

The collaboration extended well beyond USACE. Doran said NOAA, Woods Hole and the participating USACE organizations shared a common interest in improving the process, making it easier to move from an operational problem to research and ultimately to a usable solution.

“Everyone was just very supportive and generous with their time,” he said.

A solution with broader reach

Although the project began in response to a need within North Atlantic Division, its potential reach is broader. The findings can be applied wherever USACE evaluates pile-driving activities in waters where federally protected species may be affected, providing a model for turning targeted research into more consistent regulatory decisions across the agency.

For Handell, the award recognizes a team that took a problem encountered by regulatory staff and followed it through to a practical solution.

“I’m proud that we had great support for this project, that it got approved, that the team was able to complete it and gather the information,” she said. “It’s going to be very easily available for everyone to access and make the reviews that much more efficient and accurate.”

Congratulations to the WRAP Team, winners of the 2026 USACE Environmental Quality Award:

• Adrian Doran, research physical scientist, ERDC
• Kyle Dunn, research physical scientist, ERDC
• Kyle Gordon, research botanist, ERDC
• Taylor Bell, project manager, New England District
• Naomi Handell, Regulatory Program manager, North Atlantic Division
• Grace Moses, Technical Support Branch chief, New England District
• Ruthann Brien, biologist, New England District
• Megan Spindler, biologist, Baltimore District
• Aaron Damrill, WRAP manager, ERDC
• Brianne McGuffie, Regulatory Program manager, USACE Headquarters