Joint team to relocate entire Alaskan town - Marine Corps News, news from Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Joint team to relocate entire Alaskan town

The town of Newtok, Alaska — population 350 — is sinking. Rising Arctic temperatures mean the nearby Ninglick River is growing, the permafrost on which the town stands is melting, and the tiny village doesn’t have much time left.

The solution? Move the town.

Airmen, sailors, Marines and National Guardsmen will spend the next five years on a project doing just that, according to a Navy announcement, using summer windows of clear weather to relocate Newtok to higher, drier ground about nine miles away.

The joint team, made up mostly of reservists, used its first trip in late August to establish a base camp from which to operate and accept more supplies.

“Our attempt this year was just to get a foothold,” said Marine Master Sgt. Graham Hilson of Huntington Beach, Calif., mission commander and operations chief for Alpha Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group. The team also laid down a layer of Dura-Base, mats that Marines use for expeditionary runways, as a temporary road and base for the camp site.

In 2010, another team will return to build a road leading from a barge landing to the new village site, so supplies and people can arrive by utility landing craft and help with the move to the new town. The military team also plans to build an airfield and an evacuation shelter during future visits to Newtok.

It won’t be easy, however, and part of the goal for the Pentagon is to give reservists a chance to practice their skills in the difficult Alaskan environment.

The Newtok town move is one of several projects the Pentagon is coordinating as part of its Innovative Readiness Training program, which lends service members to help with local building and engineering jobs.

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