Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality

**Our Mission and Our True North:** To protect and improve public health and the environment in a manner that supports and advances a prosperous Oklahoma for current and future generations. DEQ was created July 1, 1993 as Oklahoma’s primary environmental protection agency to administer state environmental laws and delegated federal programs protecting Oklahoma’s air, land, and water resources, and to administer programs related to sources of ionizing radiation. We do this through several core functions: permitting, compliance assurance, environmental assessment and monitoring, site cleanup, planning, and outreach. Our MISSION reflects our unwavering commitment to you, the citizens of Oklahoma and the entities we regulate, that protecting our air, land, and water is paramount. We believe that you deserve optimal service with professionalism and integrity. To demonstrate this commitment, we are undertaking a bold, forward-thinking, multi-year transformation to genuinely reduce waste within the agency, increase transparency, and improve services. This transformation is guided by our TRUE NORTH – the guidepost behind every decision we make to continuously improve both our internal processes and services and Oklahoma’s natural resources. Our strategic plan was created after a brutally honest reflection of the agency we want to be and the agency we currently are. The objectives in that plan will be carried out under the umbrella of our DEQ Lean Management System, a comprehensive, agency-wide management approach to transform our mindset to one of continuous improvement. Under this approach, we will systematically achieve small, incremental improvements in our processes and services to improve efficiency, quality, and service for our customers and overall environmental outcomes.