Abandoned Navy base runs a $340,000 internet access bill

We have updated our Privacy Policy. Please review to learn more. By continuing to use our services, you agree to these updates.

×

Search for:

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

svg]:fill-accent-900 [&>svg]:stroke-accent-900">

Abandoned Navy base costs taxpayers $340,000 a year in internet nobody uses

Scores of empty homes and collapsing buildings on a former Navy base in Alaska receive tax-funded internet access, an investigation by local reporters found.

By Matt White

Published

Jul 21, 2026 10:12 AM EDT

Add Task & Purpose (opens in a new tab)

More information<br>Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results.

Many homes on the former Navy base in Adak, Alaska are uninhabitable after decades in the harsh climate, but many are counted in a tax-payer-funded program as having broadband internet access.

Photo by Marc Lester, courtesy of Anchorage Daily News.

Get Task & Purpose in your inbox

Sign up for Task & Purpose Today to get the latest in military news each morning.

Email address

Sign Up

Thank you!

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The mostly abandoned neighborhoods on Adak Island, Alaska, were once home to 5,000 Navy sailors and their families. But after 40 years as a supply depot, Naval Air Facility Adak closed in 1997, leaving scores of homes and buildings behind. Today, a small community of government workers and Alaska Native families have turned the streets and buildings of the former base into the town of Adak.

The island, far out on the Aleutian Island chain, is so isolated and decayed that Marines occasionally return to simulate hard-to-resupply expeditionary operations or urban chemical warfare among its abandoned buildings. The civilian population, now well below 100, can only reach the island on occasional civilian flights that land on the Navy’s forgotten runway.

But while nearly all of the 300-odd former Navy buildings in Adak are empty and many are collapsing, the U.S. government pays an Anchorage firm $340,000 per year to maintain internet access to them.

An investigation by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica published Monday found that an internet provider collects $340,000 every year since 2016 to keep fairly slow “broadband” internet service active for the town that now sits on the former Navy base.

“After the Navy shipped out, hurricane-force Aleutian winds pried homes apart,” wrote Kyle Hopkins for the Anchorage Daily News. “The worst of it is in a beachfront neighborhood called ‘Officer’s Country’ on old city maps. Bathroom mirrors and toilets and kitchen tables stand exposed to the rain in homes cleaved in half like dollhouses.”

While "raiding" abandoned buildings on the former Navy base in Adak, Alaska, Marines treat a simulated casualty during Arctic Expeditionary Capabilities Exercise in 2019. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Tia D. Carr.

But even Navy-built buildings now open to the elements with missing walls and roofs, reporters found, were listed on the internet provider’s roster.

The joint investigation was published as part of an ongoing series by Hopkins on internet access in remote Alaska. Adak was Hopkins’ first review of a community built around an abandoned military base.

Hopkins and a photographer flew to Adak, where many buildings on the former Navy base are uninhabitable, with collapsing walls and roofs, from years without repairs in the bitter weather of the Aleutian Islands. Hopkins visited every address on the old Navy base listed as receiving taxpayer-funded internet service.

But Hopkins reported that he found that nearly all residents use Starlink satellite internet. Blanketing the base, he reported not one customer for the tax-funded broadband.

The federal program, Hopkins reported, is paid for by the Universal Service Fund, a multi-billion-dollar effort administered by the Federal Communications Commission and funded as a small fee on nearly all consumer phone bills. The fund is intended to deliver internet to hard-to-reach rural customers.

Though the buildings on Adak were built by the Navy, the service has no current connection to the town or the pricey internet service uncovered by the ADN and ProPublica.

Closed bases meet varying fates

Adak is one of scores of closed military installations that dot the country. Many have found new lives, like Naval Training Center Baldwin Park, Florida, and Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, which are today mixed-use developments with thousands of homes, shopping and businesses. When Hurricane Andrew destroyed Homestead Air Force Base in 1992, a section was repurposed as a major racetrack (other parts were recommissioned as a...