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Documentary shines light on Camp Lejeune water contamination

Located in North Carolina, Camp Lejeune is the largest Marine base in the U.S. Since the 1950s, everyone living and working at the base was exposed to contaminated drinking water. This fact, it turns out, was covered up by the military and wasn’t brought out in the open until Ensminger “started digging into Camp Lejeune’s documents after he saw a news report about the contamination.” He says, “I see all these memorandums, all this stuff that was going on. I’m thinking to myself, for God’s sake, I was right there.”

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 Camp Lejeune Water Strongly Linked to Parkinson’s Disease

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 For Camp Lejeune Victims Exposed to Toxic Water, a New Law Promises Compensation—and Closure

Camp Lejeune was built for its water. The base, which opened in the 1940s, abuts North Carolina’s New River and miles of Atlantic Ocean beachfront, and it’s close to ports in nearby Wilmington and Morehead City. This aqueous environment made Camp Lejeune an ideal training center for the Marine Corps.

Articles of Interest

A Cancer Cluster Is Tough to Prove

The genetic mutations that cause cancer can take decades to manifest themselves, far longer than the North Carolina statute of repose allowed. But the laws we cobble together often trump those of science. And even when legal obstacles can be overcome, a link between a cancer and environmental pollutants is exceedingly difficult to establish, whether in a laboratory or a court of law.

ATSDR’s Position on the Water Contamination at Camp Lejeune

It is ATSDR’s position that past exposures from the 1950s through February 1985 to trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune likely increased the risk of cancers (kidney, multiple myeloma, leukemias, and others), adverse birth outcomes, and other adverse health effects of residents (including infants and children), civilian workers, Marines and Naval personnel at Camp Lejeune.

Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Victims: What You Need to Know

Over the course of over four decades, contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune, a U.S. Marine Corps Base in North Carolina, hundreds of thousands of servicemembers and their families were put at risk for cancer and other serious illnesses. Between 1953 and 1987, two of the eight water wells at Camp Lejeune were contaminated with harmful chemicals known to cause cancer and other serious illnesses. These wells supplied drinking and bathing water to pre-school and school children, military families, patients in the hospital and servicemembers and civilians in their place of employment. Fifteen illnesses and medical conditions, including several cancers, reproductive problems, birth defects, and Parkinson’s disease have been linked to the toxic water at Camp Lejeune.

Camp Lejeune’s toxic water killed my daughter. This new law finally allows affected families to take legal action

For nearly three decades, enlisted servicemen and women, their families and on-base staff drank, bathed and cooked with water containing known carcinogens, up to 280 times the standard safety limits.

I’ve seen the tragedy of Camp Lejeune — we can’t wait any longer to help those impacted by toxic water

Between the 1950s and 1980s, substances like jet fuel, degreaser liquid, dry cleaning fluid and cleaning solvents flowed through the water supply at Camp Lejeune.

Toxic Exposure Victims Would Benefit From Bill Expanding VA Coverage

For the thousands of veterans and their loved ones who have been locked in a decades-long battle with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regarding Camp Lejeune water contamination, the bill’s passage marks an important step in the fight for recognition of the suffering they and their family members have endured.

Why has Camp Lejeune become such a hot topic of late?

It was discovered that from 1953 until 1987, people who lived or worked at the camp drank and bathed in water that was contaminated with toxins. Potential victims couldn’t get compensation because of a statute of repose in North Carolina that precludes the filing of tort claims after 10 years. The law essentially now overrides the statute in North Carolina and allows those exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune to seek compensation.

Resources

Camp Lejeune Historic Drinking Water

In the 1980s, some of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water wells were found to be affected by unregulated industrial chemicals. We do not know if past exposure to these chemicals in Camp Lejeune’s drinking water caused adverse health effects in specific individuals. Our goal is to use the best available science in an effort to provide our Marine Corps family members the answers they deserve and keep them updated as information becomes available

Semper Fi: Always Faithful The Movie

Between 1957 – 1987 an estimated 750,000 to 1,000,000 people may have drank and bathed in tap water containing extremely high concentrations of toxic chemicals at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It is believed to be one of the largest water contamination incident s in US history.