USPS completes environmental assessment under National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires all federal agencies to implement policy goals to protect, maintain and enhance the environment. Knowing the importance of preparing environmental assessments, the Postal Service announced plans during 2011 to undertake a mail processing network rationalization initiative to create a more streamlined processing and distribution network using fewer facilities to handle an existing and projected decline in mail volumes.
To understand whether operational changes from this initiative could impact the environment, we prepared an assessment in accordance with established NEPA and Postal Service regulations. The effort was started in October 2011 and completed in early 2012. We found that our network rationalization plans would have no significant adverse impacts to physical and cultural resources or quality of the environment.