Devens Reserve Forces Training Area (RFTA) required assistance to update its master plans. The Area Development Plan enables the installations to make the best use of available land and facilities in support of Army Reserve Commands, and to ensure an orderly transition to meet future operational requirements.

The SOW required that an Environmental Assessment (EA) be prepared to comply with NEPA for the Devens RFTA area development plan update. In order to ensure compliance, preparation of documents was carried out in accordance with the NEPA (42 U.S.C. 4321, et. seq.), the Council on Environmental Quality Regulations for Implementing the Procedural Provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (40 CFR, Parts 1500‐1508), and 32 CFR Part 651.

Juniper performed evaluation of the impacts of the proposed master plan update. We assembled an appropriate interdisciplinary team to ensure that the resource impacts were analyzed by the appropriate discipline. Analyses included cultural resource evaluations in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, Waters of the US, biological resources including Threatened and Endangered Species in compliance with the Endangered Species Act, socio-economic and environmental justice factors, hazard materials, noise, air quality, utilities, traffic & transportation, and energy independence.

For all factors listed above a discussion of direct and indirect effects was included in the analysis. A separate discussion of Cumulative Impacts was also developed.