U.S. left extensive pollution across former Greenland bases, investigation finds
A months-long research by Danish newspaper Politiken of at least 36 former U.S. military sites documents rusting oil drums, radioactive wastewater, and asbestos still in the landscape, just as the U.S. seeks to reopen bases in Narsarsuaq and Kangerlussuaq.
The investigation has found that pollution left behind at former American military bases in Greenland is far more extensive than previously disclosed. Drawing on thousands of pages of documents obtained through access to information requests, including previously unpublished environmental studies from Danish and Greenlandic authorities, Politiken mapped at least 36 former U.S. bases and installations across the island, some dating back to World War II.
Reporters traveled to several sites, including Narsarsuaq, Simiutaq, and Ikkatteq and found rusting oil drums, contaminated soil, shattered asbestos, and old wreckage still scattered across the landscape decades after the Americans left. The findings come as the U.S. pushes to expand its military presence in Greenland, with a spokesman specifically naming Narsarsuaq and Kangerlussuaq as bases Washington wants to reoccupy, amid ongoing negotiations between the U.S., Denmark, and Greenland and continued rhetoric from Trump about acquiring the island.
Key findings
- Hundreds of thousands of liters of diesel fuel, thousands of tons of hazardous or contaminated waste, and up to 100,000 corroded oil drums have been left across the mapped sites.
- Up to 24 million liters of low-level radioactive wastewater remain buried beneath the ice sheet at the former Camp Century station, along with PCB and heavy-metal contamination exceeding regulatory limits at nearly every site studied.
- Simiutaq (Bluie West 3) holds an estimated 10,000 cubic meters of oil-contaminated soil; Marraq (Bluie West 4) has roughly 8,000 abandoned drums and an estimated 120,000 liters of diesel contamination.
- Ikkatteq, on the east coast, has tens of thousands of drums stacked along a shoreline still used by local mussel gatherers. Consultants have warned the contamination may pose risks to marine life and the people who eat it, though no Greenlandic authority currently has the resources to formally assess or warn against this.
- In Narsarsuaq, asbestos from a demolished U.S. military hospital remains scattered through a valley where children played for decades. A 2019 Aarhus University field study reportedly found contamination serious enough to raise concern about student safety, yet no warning signs are posted and a resident’s request for investigation went unanswered by the local municipality.
The legal and political backdrop
- The U.S. position traces back to Article XI of a 1951 U.S.-Denmark defense agreement, which allows Washington to leave bases in whatever condition they’re found.
- A 1991 agreement later committed the U.S. to removing hazardous substances, but Politiken reports Washington effectively reversed that commitment by the early 2000s, reportedly telling Denmark it would not set a cleanup precedent it might have to honor at other overseas bases, according to then Environment Minister Svend Auken.
- Denmark ultimately absorbed the cost and responsibility for cleanup, including at the Dundas area near Pituffik, and later allocated 180 million kroner (from 2018, over six years) for select site remediation without any U.S. contribution. That funding reportedly remains largely unspent.
- Neither the Pentagon nor Denmark’s Environment Ministry responded to questions about whether the 1991 agreement is still considered valid or in force.
- Greenlandic politicians across the spectrum, including Siumut’s Aleqa Hammond, Atassut’s Bentiaraq Ottosen, and IA’s Naaja Nathanielsen, are sharply critical, describing the pollution as emblematic of disrespect and invoking a “polluter pays” principle.
