Employees of ATCO Frontec Europe skim Kandahar Airfield’s Poo Pond on Sept. 13. Poo Pond is being drained and all evidence of the infamous pond promises to be gone by April 2013. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Erick Studenicka, 117 Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
The sea of human waste at Kandahar Air Field known as the “Poo Pond” is finally being drained!
“By early winter, most of the pond area near the intersection of All-American Boulevard and Louisiana Road promises to appear just like any other non-descript vacant plot of land on KAF,” a triumphant news release announced on Thursday.
The process of exorcising the Aegean Sea of excrement began on Sept. 3, when sewage suction trucks began using the new Deep South Water Waste Water Treatment Plant, the news release says. The next day, black water from three of the Poo Pond’s cells started being transferred to the new wastewater facility, which will be fully operational by Oct. 1.
The last of the infamous Poo Pond’s visible cells will be drained in January because it contains kitchen grease and other materials that require special disposal. Each cell will need three to four weeks to dry, after which the remaining sludge will be removed and the dried sub ponds can be backfilled.
“Newcomers to KAF in April 2013 will have no idea the Poo Pond was ever here and they’ll have no idea what the pond ever looked like,” said a NATO spokesperson in the news release.
But the Poo Pond has earned a hallowed place in the annals of war and will never be forgotten.
9 Comments
I hope the had protective clothing NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOt no osha there
Will never forget that smell.
What ever happened to good old-fashioned burn barrels?
At least you didn’t refer to “the anals of war!”
So, instead of just an annoying stench, personnel on that base will have to deal with 3-4 months of breathing fecal dust (and other hazardous waste that made its way there), when the heavy equipment comes in to “reclaim” the sludge and solid waste left after the ponds dry……
Just an annoying stench? You have clearly not been in kandahar and had to sleep by the poo pond. Which probably means you have no business giving your opinion
Our son is there now and says it is something you’ll never forget! We sent sent over lots of Vics to rub under his nose. Poor guys. Pround Air Force parents.
Well, it is March 26, 2013 and the poo pond lives on!!! I walk past it everyday to and from work and believe me, the stench is still there; a combination of Ammonia, Methane, feces, bacteria, all of it aerosolised by giant pumps that spray it up into the air. This helps it spread all over KAF. In my 20 years traveling the world I have never seen, heard, or read about anything as bad as this. Stalin could not have come up with anything worse in a Gulag.
Remember the scene in one of the Rambo movies where he was being dunked in a pit of feces; that is it; just magnify it to a few ponds larger than football fields and you’ll get an idea of what this is.
This is not like your normal sewage treatment plant, these are large open ponds of raw human waste. There is not one country in the world that would allow this to occur anywhere near a city or town, but somehow NATO gets away with it, how does that happen??
I haven’t stopped coughing since I got here and already have been treated for bronchitis; the first time in my life.
Any Congressmen or Senators paying attention to this??
Such A romantic Place to sit and watch the sunset. The orange glare of the of the descending sun gleaming off of the fascinating waters of the “poo pond”. what an amazing place.