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Victims Of Water Pollution In Army Camp Pour Out Their Tales of Woe to Senate Committee
Some 75,000 Marines and their families, quartered in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were exposed to toxic tap water that may have caused cancer and birth defects.
At least 40 former U.S. Marines or sons of Marines who lived at Camp Lejeune have been diagnosed with the cancer that strikes fewer than 2,000 men a year, compared with about 200,000 women.
U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina was established in 1942. In 1982, the Marine Corps discovered specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the drinking water provided by two of the eight water treatment plants on base.
Water from the Tarawa Terrace Treatment Plant was contaminated by PCE (perchloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene). The source of the contamination was the waste disposal practices at ABC One-Hour Cleaners, an off-base dry cleaning firm. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) modeled the contamination and determined that the Tarawa Terrace system had PCE levels that exceeded the current standard of 5 micrograms per liter (ėg/L) for 346 months between November 1957 and February 1987. (Note: 1 ėg/L of a drinking water contaminant is equivalent to 1 part per billion or ppb) The most contaminated wells were shut down in February 1985.
Water from the Hadnot Point Treatment Plant was contaminated primarily by TCE (trichloroethylene). Other contaminants in the drinking water included DCE (t-1,2-dichloroethylene), PCE and benzene. The system was contaminated by multiple sources: leaking underground storage tanks, industrial area spills, and waste disposal sites.
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