• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Camp Lemonier Improves Infrastructure, Quality of Life

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS081115-04
Release Date: 11/15/2008 4:12:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW/AW) Marc Rockwell-Pate, Commander Naval Region Europe Public Affairs

DJIBOUTI CITY, Djibouti (NNS) -- A new post office, chapel, ice plant and recent on-site potable water supply are among the projects started or about to start at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti (CLDJ), to improve the quality of life of service members deployed there.

Capt. Patrick Gibbons, commanding officer CLDJ, and members of the public works department and Petroland Construction broke ground on the camp's new post office Nov. 13, signifying another step in the camp's continuing efforts to upgrade facilities and improve quality of life.

"Being stationed here in this environment is harsh, and any little extra can help," said Lt. Cmdr. Lya Theodoratos, the director of Naval Facilities Engineering Command Europe and Southwest Asia's Facilities, Engineering and Acquisition Department at CLDJ. "By centrally locating different facilities like the post office, we are making things more convenient and accessible, and that alone improves quality of life and morale."

The camp's new 6,500 square foot post office will consist of eight offices, a lobby approximately six times the size of the current office and a processing area four times larger, capable of processing mail for up to 5,000 people., twice the number of personnel currently at the base.

Currently, postal operations are performed by five personnel working out of four storage containers and two offices. During the last year some of the lobby operations were performed outdoors, exposing postal personnel and customers to extreme temperatures while processing nearly 700,000 pounds of mail.

Prior to the post office ceremony, a Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Unit 4 (NMCB 4) detachment located at CLDJ helped break ground on a new potable ice production facility Oct. 29. The ice plant will allow the camp to stop importing ice for water bottle coolers and save nearly $700,000 a year. The camp's drinking water supply also became potable Oct. 27, potentially saving more than $2 million per year.

"Having ice that is potable improves quality of life and helps put people's minds at ease, and in this environment that is important," said Chief Storekeeper (SW/AW) Jeremy Beadle, a supply department chief petty
officer at CLDJ.

Beadle added that the camp's water becoming potable will help lower the number of plastic water bottles needed and will in turn lower trash and recycling operational costs. Camp personnel were using bottled water for all their daily needs before the water was deemed potable.

The camp will also break ground on a new chapel Nov. 21, consolidating chapel personnel's offices into one location and increasing the seating capacity by 500 percent.

"We used to have to try and fit 60 people in a 10-by-10 room," said Religious Programs Specialist 2nd Class (SW) Brooks Maxwell. "Now we will have a facility that will be able to seat 300 people, and we'll have classrooms for discussions and training. I think this new chapel will dramatically increase morale and give people on camp a better place to exercise their faith."

According to Theodoratos, CLDJ also intends to break ground on four airfield storage facilities, a recreation center expansion, a water plant, a new dinning facility and more laundry units.

"Over the next fiscal year, the camp will spend somewhere between $10 and $15 million dollars improving our facilities," added Theodoratos.

Theodoratos expects the ice plant, post office and chapel to be completed by April of next year, with a bulk of the remaining projects either started or completed by the end of next year.

Camp Lemonier has approximately 2,400 personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and DoD contactors, including the U.S. Army 218th Field Artillery Regiment, a detachment from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Unit 4, and the Marine 9th Provisional Security Force. Most camp personnel serve six- to nine-month rotations as individual augmentees (IA). Camp Lemonier is the only enduring U.S. military infrastructure located in Africa and supports U.S. joint military personnel and operations throughout the continent.

For more news from Commander, Navy Region Europe, visit www.navy.mil/local/cnre/.