Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumSurprise! Eielson AFB (Fairbanks) Munitions Bunker Sliding Slowly Downhill As Permafrost Melts
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska When warming temperatures melted the frozen ground under the munitions repair facility here years ago, the foundation shifted, causing deep cracks to spread across the thick concrete walls. Over time, the repair bay for missiles and other explosives began to separate from the floor, forcing the 12-foot blast-proof doors out of alignment so they could not be properly closed, according to Defense Department documents and interviews with base construction officials. Then the entire facility, built on a sloping hillside and hidden in a patch of dense trees, started slowly sliding toward the base of 10,000 people working and living below.
In Alaska, it is not only wildlife and native communities that are deeply affected by warming temperatures, but also Cold War-era U.S. military bases. Once facing closure, some of these bases, like Eielson, have become strategically important again for their proximity to Russia, China and North Korea and the vast Arctic resources that global warming has made accessible to competing nations for the first time.
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Eielson was on the verge of closing when the Air Force decided in 2016 to station two squadrons of its fifth-generation stealth fighter jets there, revitalizing the base and surrounding communities just as the damaging effects of global warming were becoming clearly visible.
Over the years, as engineers watched the munitions repair facility, Building 6385, shift with the melting ground, they would patch the cracks and make other repairs in the hopes of saving it, said Jason Stormont, the project manager for the facility. They filled it in over the years to try and preserve it, he said in an interview, surrounded by four security escorts accompanying a visitor to the outside the classified facility. But new soil samples showed the permafrost to be deep and unstable. It wasnt feasible to restore it so were going to (demolish) the entire building to the ground, said Stormont. The cost to rebuild is $15.5 million, according to Air Force military construction budget documents.
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https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/impact-of-melting-permafrost-on-three-military-installations-in-alaska/
riversedge
(69,721 posts)............For example, it has largely stopped using terms such as climate change and global warming or giving press briefings on the matter so as not to antagonize the White House, according to current and former military officials.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/impact-of-melting-permafrost-on-three-military-installations-in-alaska/