Luke has perfect air permit inspection

  • Published
  • By Stephen Delgado
  • Thunderbolt staff writer
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The news is filled with terms such as climate change and environmental footprints.

Luke Air Force Base takes its responsibility for a clean environment seriously, and that premise was shown in the results of the annual air permit inspection and its ongoing practices throughout the year.

There were no findings this year, according to Charles Rothrock, 56th Civil Engineer Squadron environmental chief.

The detailed air permit inspection is done on a yearly basis.

"This inspection entails around five days of physical inspections looking at most of the 465 pieces of air emitting equipment listed in our Title V air operating permit," Rothrock said. "The inspector requests a lot of records, such as solvent use and paint booth inspections, and spends close to a month and a half reviewing them. We get inspected every year in July or August."

Luke is vigilant and diligent about reducing its environmental footprint.

"We have an aggressive recycling program, which includes recycling a lot of construction debris from the F-35 construction project," Rothrock said.

This year's inspection results topped last year's result.

"There were four findings in 2012, which included two at the auto hobby shop and two at the military service station," Rothrock said.

Rothrock has a plethora of duties and experience as an environmental manager.

He said he has a decade as the 56th CES environmental chief. His principle duties include being the base environmental management system coordinator, which includes environmental programming and budgeting. He has spent the past four years running the archeological mitigation of 44 acres for the proposed solar array.

What's more, Rothrock reflected on the results of the inspection.

"It was an incredible accomplishment for the base to come through one of these inspections without any findings," he said. "It was the first time since 2000 that there were not any findings. These results show the unbridled dedication of our base air program manager, Yvonne Newell, and the attention to detail of all the shops with air emitting equipment. It was a great Team Luke effort."

Newell added that Team Luke takes its job as environmental steward seriously and can take pride in a job well done.