This story will make you sick, not as sick as it's making many Marines and their families. The water supply a Camp Lejeune has been contaminated on an ongoing basis since 1957. At least as many as a million people were exposed contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune and so far 850 former residents of this Marine base have taken part in a $4 billion administrative claim.
What's worse, it appears that several civilian contractors and possibly some Navy employees have possibly obstructed justice as EPA investigators have attempted to get to the bottom of the situation and determine criminal wrongdoing.
Military bases have a long history of contaminating the land it sits on. There are many reasons for this, and some of the primary reasons relate to an old-fashioned sense of taking care of the environment in an ecosystem design to run equipment and perform missions and training events to tear apart the environment. This situation is different, as the contamination to that result from munitions blowing things up, but instead from contractors dumping carcinogens in ways that those carcinogens would rapidly find their way into the water supply. Al Qaeda couldn't have done a better job if they tried.
From 1957 until 1987 water supplies at Camp Lejeune was contaminated by TCE, a degreasing solvent, and PCE, a dry-cleaning agent, both carcinogens. During the affected years studies found levels of PCE as high as 200 parts per billion, compared to 5 parts per billion that federal regulators set in 1992 as the maximum allowable level.
At least 850 former residents of the Marine base have filed administrative claims, seeking nearly $4 billion, for exposure to the industrial solvents.
Source: AHN | Marine Families Exposed To Toxic Drinking Water | June 15, 2007
1 comment:
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