Project Profile: Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) System Upgrade

PEPC ensures a wide variety of technical assistance can be done in national parks.

NPS

Inflation Reduction Act
Environmental Review | $4,990,279

The National Park Service will redevelop the Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) system. The PEPC system is designed to: track project progress and document compliance; support internal staff collaboration and documentation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA); provide a venue for making documents available to the public and collecting public comments; and provide tools for public comment analysis and response. The project will support the migration of PEPC to a new platform and database to reduce risks and costs associated with the current technology.

Why? After review of the system, the National Park Service identified major risks including a shrinking developer community, technical debt associated with years of custom code, and a lack of security measures. The goal of the project is to redevelop the system to be more effective, secure and reliable.

What Else? There are approximately 4,000 PEPC system users, and since its launch in 2004, over 110,000 projects have been entered into the system. The new system will have an updated interface with refreshed workflows that are easier to navigate and are hosted within modern technology infrastructure. The NPS will integrate analytics tools and dashboards that provide real time compliance information. Improved adaptability and a modern interface will facilitate integration with the Department of the Interior's I-NEPA system.