Thule lays in supplies during summer season

  • Published
  • By Capt. Marie Meihls
  • 821st Air Base Group
THULE AIR BASE, Greenland --  The annual re-supply of Thule Air Base began July 21 with the arrival of the first vessels of the port season.

Thule AB has the Department of Defense's northernmost deep water port. This once-a-year re-supply to the "top of the world" stretches the limits of the joint logistics machine.

"It's a unique opportunity to watch port operations with icebergs in the background," said Col. Lee-Volker Cox, Thule AB commander. "The Am Tern (supply ship) tied up to the pier and they were offloading containers in less than 30 minutes: cranes lifting containers, trucks moving into place and leaving the pier, dozens of workers with hard hats guiding equipment and containers, while simultaneously others were processing a tanker. The precision and synchronization was teamwork at its best," he said.

The re-supply mission must be on-target to deliver life-sustaining materials to the 800 military and contractor personnel stationed more than 700 miles above the Arctic Circle.

This operation is so vital to the base's survival that it must be timed for the summer months, when Baffin Bay is not covered with more than four feet of ice. For 2007 the time-line was shortened to only a 30-day window due to budget constraints. It is during this critical window that supply ships, accompanied by a Canadian Coast Guard ice breaker, the Henry Larson, will visit Thule.

Once in port, the first ship offloaded roughly 100 sealift containers, about 1.5 million pounds of cargo, in less than 31 hours of arrival. The supplies provide the base with dry goods, commissary and base exchange supplies, vehicles, medical supplies and sensitive satellite and radar equipment. Afterwards the ship was loaded with unusable equipment including 85 excess vehicles and hazardous waste, for disposal or reutilization at Norfolk Naval Station, Va., by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office.

The fuel ship, the MV Marvea, provided the base with the "life-blood" of 8.8 million gallons of JP-8 diesel fuel and 80,000 gallons of unleaded fuel. All of Thule's operating systems, from vehicles to generators to the heating plant, rely primarily on the JP-8 to provide electrical power and heating.

"The seaport operations here are second to none," said Master Sgt. Tim Quinn. "Greenland contractors executed unmatched fuels support ensuring product received met or exceeded Defense Energy Support Center and Air Force standards," Sgt. Quinn said.

Once the two ships depart, the base will only have a few weeks to accept and offload several more cargo ships before preparing for the onslaught of winter. The supplies and fuel become critical assets to the base mission as the storm season approaches. The storm season, which officially begins Sept. 15, includes temperatures ranging from 18 degrees Fahrenheit to negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit, emphasizing the importance of the supply mission to the 800 Thule inhabitants.

"Port operations are very dangerous and they need to be done just right or someone could be severely injured or die," Colonel Cox said. "However, dangerous operations are nothing new to Team Thule. We can't just run down to the grocery store or lumber yard to get supplies. Our survival depends on these ships."

"When the temperatures drop to 40 below and the winds reach 100 mph, we'll be thankful for our professional port operators," he said. "I am really proud of Team Thule and their focus on getting the ships offloaded."

 

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