Director Alexander Koustrup Nielsen is proud of the work that the family company HK Transport in Qaqortoq has done on the abandoned American base Camp Corbett with the airport in Narsarsuaq as its nearest neighbour.
During three years of clean-up, the base area has been transformed.
– Nature is taking over again, says Alexander Koustrup Nielsen to Sermitsiaq.
The work at Camp Corbett is part of the Danish clean-up of abandoned American military bases in Greenland, which the state and the self-government agreed in January 2018. The clean-up and disposal of waste at 17 named locations applies to landfills, buildings, chattels, machinery, metal, plastic and asbestos-containing material – and the thousands of rusted oil barrels from the war. Price: DKK 180 million, paid by the Danish treasury.
The company Kingo Greenland began the cleanup at Camp Corbett in 2024, and HK Transport continued in 2025 to finish the work in a busy month from early May to early June. In both 2025 and 2026, the Qaqortoq company had assigned eight men to the task, which this year dealt with buried waste and the last loose objects. The collected waste was packed into containers which the national shipping company Royal Arctic Line picked up at the quay in Narsarsuaq. The waste has been shipped to Denmark for landfill or incineration.
But there is a snake in paradise: the agreement between the state and the self-government covers, by and large, only the things that lie on the ground or are buried in the dump. The consulting engineering firms Cowi and Nira have documented tons of toxic chemicals and contaminated soil and water that remain at the 17 abandoned bases.
The clean-up is led by a steering group with representatives from the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Defense in Denmark and the Department of Nature and the Environment in Greenland. The cleanup in 2026 will take place in three locations: Camp Corbett at Narsarsuaq, Bluie West 9 at Sisimiut and Cape Atholl at Pituffik Space Base.
Camp Corbett
Director Alexander Koustrup Nielsen is proud of the work that the family company HK Transport in Qaqortoq has done on the abandoned American base Camp Corbett with the airport in Narsarsuaq as its nearest neighbour.
During three years of clean-up, the base area has been transformed.
– Nature is taking over again, says Alexander Koustrup Nielsen to Sermitsiaq.
The work at Camp Corbett is part of the Danish clean-up of abandoned American military bases in Greenland, which the state and the self-government agreed in January 2018. The clean-up and disposal of waste at 17 named locations applies to landfills, buildings, chattels, machinery, metal, plastic and asbestos-containing material – and the thousands of rusted oil barrels from the war. Price: DKK 180 million, paid by the Danish Treasury.
The company Kingo Greenland began the cleanup at Camp Corbett in 2024, and HK Transport continued in 2025 to finish the work in a busy month from early May to early June. In both 2025 and 2026, the Qaqortoq company had assigned eight men to the task, which this year dealt with buried waste and the last loose objects. The collected waste was packed into containers which the national shipping company Royal Arctic Line picked up at the quay in Narsarsuaq. The waste has been shipped to Denmark for landfill or incineration.
But there is a snake in paradise: the agreement between the state and the self-government covers, by and large, only the things that lie on the ground or are buried in the dump. The consulting engineering firms Cowi and Nira have documented tons of toxic chemicals and contaminated soil and water that remain at the 17 abandoned bases.
The clean-up is led by a steering group with representatives from the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Defense in Denmark and the Department of Nature and the Environment in Greenland. The cleanup in 2026 will take place in three locations: Camp Corbett at Narsarsuaq, Bluie West 9 at Sisimiut and Cape Atholl at Pituffik Space Base.
Camp Corbett
The contractor company HK Transport and the engineering company Niras worked in May at Camp Corbett.
Camp Corbett was established in 1942 as a radio station for the airport at Narsarsuaq, and the Americans left both the radio station and the airport in 1958. 10-20 men were stationed there, and they were transported in a cable car from the airport across the river to the radio station. Before the clean-up, the site was characterized by several hundred wooden masts and a 185 meter high steel mast. In addition, there were buildings, emergency power plants and oil tanks as well as several landfills spread over 690,000 square meters.
The engineering company Niras has since 2020 carried out environmental studies, which detected 650 tonnes of hazardous waste, 60 tonnes of contaminated but non-hazardous waste and 2,200 tonnes of non-contaminated waste at the site. There were 80-100 tons of waste in the landfills. Niras assesses that the pollution does not pose a risk to people and nature, and no preventive measures have been carried out against the soil or water pollution.
Greenland’s National Museum & Archives visited Camp Corbett in 2020. The cultural-historical value was assessed as being very low, and the site was released for clean-up, albeit with due regard for the nearby ancient finds.
After three years of clean-up, the steering group will assess whether a final clean-up should take place in 2027.
Bluie West 9
Dear child has many names, including the small island south of Sisimiut at the mouth of Kangerlussuaq, where a weather station during the Second World War was codenamed Bluie West 9. In Greenlandic the island is called Simiutaq, in English Cruncher Island.
In August and September, the contractor company Permagreen Sisimut and the engineering company Niras carry out a clean-up on Simiutaq (not to be confused with the island of Simiutaq at Qaqortoq, which is also included in the overall clean-up plan).
The weather station was in operation 1942-1948, but in 1959-1963 the Americans returned to the island, where they established an unmanned radio beacon. Today, 10 buildings, a concrete dam, seven wooden and two steel masts, generators and vehicles still exist along with the landfill.
Greenland’s National Museum & Archives visited the island in 2021 to document the American presence in the two periods, after which the site was released for cleanup. However, the National Museum has recommended that the dam be preserved in its current state due to inscriptions in the concrete of conservation value.
Niras estimates after a visit in 2021 that there is a total of three tonnes of hazardous waste, eight tonnes of contaminated but non-hazardous waste and 31 tonnes of non-contaminated waste on the island. A depot holds 150 batteries, equivalent to 1.5 tonnes. Soil samples show a high level of contamination with oil and heavy metals. The contaminated soil, around 100 cubic metres, is not included in the clean-up plan, but will be left on the island.
Cape Atholl
The Americans had a Loran station on Cape Atholl from 1954 to 1975. Cape Atholl is just south of the Pituffik Space Base, which, on the other hand, is not included in the current clean-up plan.
The construction company Per Aarsleff and the engineering company Cowi will carry out a clean-up in July and August, which will be completed in 2027. However, it is unclear whether buried waste must be removed.
Cowi visited Cape Atholl in 2022, where the engineering firm found two buildings, remains of a dam, small concrete foundations, remains of road construction and wooden masts, two tanks, cables and a landfill. Cowi estimates that there are 10 tonnes of hazardous waste, seven tonnes of contaminated but non-hazardous waste and 158 tonnes of non-contaminated waste. In one area, building materials and drums are buried.
Greenland’s National Museum & Archives visited Cape Atholl in 2021. Large amounts of waste on the beach originate from the landfill, which is becoming more and more exposed after decades of erosion. Today, both a bulldozer and a large amount of copper wire have emerged from the slope.
