Tainted Water in the Land of Semper Fi

[thedrifter]

Tainted Water in the Land of Semper Fi
Marines Want to Know Why Base Did Not Close Wells When Toxins Were Found
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Catharine Skipp
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 28, 2004; Page A03


CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. --

A military engineer assigned in 1980 to test the drinking water at this sprawling Marine Corps base punctuated his findings with a handwritten exclamation point.

"WATER HIGHLY CONTAMINATED WITH . . . CHLORINATED HYDROCARBONS (SOLVENTS)!" William C. Neal wrote in capital letters on one of his surveillance reports in early 1981.

A private firm followed up with tests the next year. One of its samples showed an astonishing result: 1,400 parts per billion -- 280 times the level now considered safe for drinking water -- of trichloroethylene, a likely cancer-causing chemical used for degreasing machinery that can impair the development of fetuses, weaken the immune system, and damage kidneys and livers. Other samples showed as little as 1 part per billion to as many as 104 parts per billion -- more than 20 times the level now considered safe -- of tetrachloroethylene, a toxic dry-cleaning chemical that can seep into body fat and slowly release cancer-causing compounds.

The number of people who may have drunk the tainted water, bathed in it, had water fights with it is staggering: The Marine Corps estimates 50,000 Marines and their families lived in base housing areas that may have been fed by the wells before they were closed in 1985. Victim advocacy groups place the figure even higher, at 200,000, which would make Camp Lejeune one of the largest contaminated-water cases in U.S. history.

Already, more than 270 tort claims have been filed with the Navy's judge advocate general's office by former residents, who are required by law to file claims with the military before proceeding with any possible action in civilian courts.

One of those claims was filed by a Marine air traffic controller named Jeff Byron. Within months of the 1982 tests, Byron moved his family into base housing at Lejeune, grateful to leave behind a rickety mobile home in favor of a modest townhouse with a postage-stamp back yard. Byron and his wife, Mary, were not told about the water-sampling results, and nearly two decades would pass before they would find out about them. Now he wakes up thinking about all the frozen lemonade and apple juice he mixed with tap water for Andrea, who was born three months before he moved on base, and for Rachel, who was born two years after.

Both of his girls have been beset with a lifetime of ailments: Rachel, who is developmentally disabled, was born with a cleft palate and needed leg braces as a child. She has spina bifida; a gangly, arachnoid cyst on her spine that cannot be removed; and brittle, rotting teeth. Andrea had a rare bone marrow syndrome known as aplastic anemia and has been told by her doctors that the disease could recur if she becomes pregnant.

"I find myself asking, 'What if I hadn't joined the Marine Corps?' " said Byron, who left the military for the private sector in 1985.

No one knows for sure whether the water at Lejeune made Byron's children ill or whether it sickened thousands of other former residents -- both Marines and civilians living on base -- hundreds of whom have organized into a lobbying group known as Water Survivors. The group's members blame the contamination for a variety of ills, from chronic headaches to virulent cancers, from infertility to the incurable leukemia that claimed their children's lives.

The battle over the water contamination at Lejeune has strained age-old loyalties, matching Marine veterans against the power structure of an organization that prides itself in the motto Semper Fidelis, or "always faithful." The Marine Corps has not denied that contamination took place at Lejeune.

In a written response to questions from The Washington Post, the Corps said the wells were not shut down for five years because there were no federal drinking-water regulations then for the chemicals found in Lejeune's water: trichloroethylene, or TCE, the metal degreaser that federal researchers say was kept in leaky underground storage tanks, and tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, which researchers believe leaked into the wells from a dry cleaner that still operates across the street from Lejeune's main gate. The Environmental Protection Agency had recommended levels -- not enforceable standards -- at the time, and the Corps said the average contamination readings for TCE were below those levels and that the PCE readings were "only slightly above" those levels.

In recent months, the contamination case has drawn the attention of the EPA's criminal enforcement division, which has dispatched investigators to gather information about the history of contamination at the base. There also is pressure on Capitol Hill. Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), the ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says hearings are warranted.

"I have very serious questions about why the Marine Corps, who knew the drinking-water wells were highly contaminated in 1980, didn't close them until 1985," Jeffords, a Navy veteran, said in an interview. "Sunshine is always the best disinfectant. . . . We have a strong obligation to provide all the information we already have to the Marines and their families."

For many former residents, the contamination saga did not begin until 1999, when they received questionnaires from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, which studies polluted Superfund sites, such as Lejeune.

The ATSDR, which focused its research on women who were pregnant while living on base from 1968 to 1985, issued a progress report in July that identified 103 cases of birth defects or childhood cancers among nearly 12,600 births included in the survey. Jeffords and his research staff say the rate is three to five times the normal rate.

The Marine Corps has vowed to cooperate with the study. In a videotaped statement accompanying the public release of the ATSDR progress report, Lt. Gen. Rick Kelly, deputy commandant for installations and logistics, said, "I want you to know that the welfare of our extended Marine Corps family is very important to the commandant and me." He closed his remarks with the words semper fidelis.

The release of the ATSDR report came after three years of often bitter clashes between members of Water Survivors, who used the Freedom of Information Act to gather mounds of evidence that they say proves federal officials have not been forthcoming about the contamination, and the Marine Corps and federal researchers. In a series of 1998 e-mails recently disclosed on the Marines' Web site, officials at Lejeune discussed how public concern about water contamination could be stoked by the release of the film "A Civil Action," which traced the legal battle over contaminated drinking-water wells in Woburn, Mass.

"Just a thought," Neal Paul, director of Lejeune's toxic cleanup program, wrote to an official at Marine headquarters. "With the movie coming out in Dec., can we delay the questionnaires until April/May time frame?" An ATSDR spokesman said the timing of the survey was not influenced by the Marines.

The ATSDR estimates that the Lejeune wells may have been contaminated as many as 30 years before being closed -- going back to the mid-1950s -- a projection that would greatly expand the number of potential contamination victims to encompass the massive buildup of troops at Lejeune between the Korean and Vietnam wars. Marine Corps officials described the projection as "opinion or conjecture" in its written response to questions.

Extending the contamination dates to the 1950s would draw in veterans, such as Tom Townsend, a retired Marine major, whose wife, Anne, is ineligible for the study because she was pregnant with their third child, Christopher, in 1966 -- two years before the start date of the ATSDR study, which was chosen because it marks the beginning of computerized birth records in North Carolina.

Christopher always had a "strange cry," Anne Townsend recalled, "not a healthy, full-wallop cry." Christopher's father, who was on duty in Vieques, Puerto Rico, got home just in time to see him die of a heart defect when he was 3 months old.

Tom Townsend trades documents and talks strategy with Jerry Ensminger, another retired Marine once based at Lejeune, whose eyes still well with tears when he talks about Janey, the 6-year-old daughter he lost to leukemia in 1985. Ensminger said he wonders whether doctors would have been able to change her treatment if they had known about the contamination.

For Townsend and Ensminger, one of the most galling pieces of paper they have unearthed is a notice sent in 1985 to residents of Tarawa Terrace, a large housing development at Lejeune where Byron and Ensminger once lived, by the base's then-commander, Maj. Gen. Louis H. Buehl. The notice announces the closure of two wells because "minute (trace) amounts of several organic chemicals have been detected," though it does not specify which chemicals were found.

Some water-contamination experts believe the lack of enforceable regulatory standards for the chemicals would be a weak defense if the case ever made it into the courts.

"Even in those days, that would have constituted pretty close to a drinking-water crisis," said Richard Maas, director of the environmental studies department at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. "That information was all out there; it was being used in the late 1970s and early 1980s. . . . If a typical town had done that [sampling], they probably would have abandoned that as a water source."

continued...

[thedrifter]

Finding out who may have been exposed to the tainted water at Lejeune is proving to be a monumental task. The ATSDR is poring over aging maps and pipe diagrams to glean where the water flowed and when. The research is further complicated by the transitory nature of military life -- many of the Marines who may have consumed tainted water lived on base for only a few years and have since moved.

The ATSDR has been assailed by the Water Survivors group and by Jeffords for limiting the scope of the study to pregnant women.

"We didn't want the whole world to know, or they'd all start calling -- we couldn't handle that," said Marie L. Socha, an ATSDR researcher who has worked on the Camp Lejeune project.

The agency has determined that the chemicals would not affect the health of adults, a contention disputed by Michael Gros, an obstetrician at Lejeune from 1980 to 1983. Gros, who has T-cell lymphoma and can no longer practice, has been pushing for the ATSDR to notify all former residents, regardless of age.

"They've just done the biggest ghoulish experiment on adults, and they don't want to know the results," Gros said. "What's happening while they're stalling us is everybody's gone hither and yon, and they're dying."

Leaders of the Water Survivors group, increasingly skeptical about the pace of federal research, are hoping the possibility of congressional hearings could speed their efforts to get compensation for the medical bills of possible victims.

"We want to force these people, under oath, to come in and talk about this stuff," Gros said. "How do you know your water is contaminated for five years and do nothing about it? How do you explain that away?"

But, for all the passion, some of Ensminger's old Marine pals want him to let up.

"They say, 'Semper fidelis -- give 'em a break. Why do you want to hurt the Corps?' " said Ensminger, a former master sergeant who retired in 1994 after 241/2 years in the Corps.

But an image that rattles around inside Ensminger's stubborn, crew-cut head will not let him give up. He sees Janey, all big, brown eyes and silly smiles, watching him as her doctors advised him to stop treatment because there was no hope. Janey looked up at them, Ensminger recalls, and said: "You're talking about me. I'm not dead. You're not giving up on me."

One week later, she was gone.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54143-2004Jan27.html


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[wayne553]

That was posted on ************* last week.STILL is interesting reading

wc

[thedrifter]

Some More Links.......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A54143-2004Jan27&notFound=true


http://www.usmc.mil/camplejeune/clbwatersurveyinfo.nsf



http://www.watersurvivors.com/about_us.asp



Corps steps up base water probe
February 21,2004
THOMAS DAIL
DAILY NEWS STAFF

An independent panel appointed by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee soon will begin investigating water contamination in Camp Lejeune base housing that impacted thousands of Marines and their families until 1985.

The panel will focus on events between 1980, when toxic chemicals were discovered in base drinking water by an engineer, and 1985, when the contaminated wells were capped. The three-person panel will be made up of professionals from the private sector with expertise in the environment, engineering and the military. Hagee hasn't yet named the panel.

The three will spend six months reviewing documents and interviewing past and present base officials, to clarify the sequence of events and decisions officials made during the five-year period. There is no current known threat to Lejeune residents.

Already, the Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a criminal investigation into the contamination. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is conducting a health study on several childhood cancers and birth defects in children exposed to the chemicals while in the womb.

The panel will have access to all relevant information, a spokesman for the Marine Corps said. It is scheduled to report its findings to Hagee by Sept 1.

"We must leave no stone unturned on this important issue," Hagee said Friday in a written statement. "We think an independent panel, focused on that defined purpose, is the best way to effectively and expeditiously review this situation."

The move comes a week after Navy and Marine Corps officials declined Sen. Jim Jeffords' request to contact all former residents of the affected housing areas and inform them of the known health effects of the contamination.

Such a notification was premature, they said, because the ATSDR study is still years from completion.

Jeffords, I-Vermont, also called for congressional hearings to investigate the contamination.

Retired Marine Jerry Ensminger, who now lives in Richlands, said he was hopeful the panel would get to the bottom of why the Marine Corps waited five years before closing the contaminated wells.

"I am pleased but skeptical," he said.

He questioned the panel's independence, because Hagee will appoint the members and they will be beholden to the Marine Corps for documentation. He also asked that he or others who have been asking questions about this for years get a seat on the panel.

"If they are sincere about an independent committee and really getting to the bottom of this thing, they will have some people who have a vested interested in it on the committee," he said.

Ensminger's daughter, Jane, was conceived on Camp Lejeune in the 1970s and died of leukemia when she was 9 years old.

Ensminger said he also hoped the panel would look at the contamination from the beginning and look at the Marine Corps' cooperation with the ATSDR study.

A plume consisting of a dry-cleaning solvent called tetrachloroethylene or PCE leaked from an off-base dry cleaners to contaminate wells that fed the Tarawa Terrace drinking water system. The dry cleaners opened in 1957, and ATSDR researchers are looking at how long it took the plume to reach base wells.

Another plume of groundwater containing a mix of toxic substances leeched from leaking underground storage tanks in the base motor pool and industrial area contaminated the wells at Hadnot Point. The biggest contaminant was an industrial solvent called trichloroethylene or TCE. After the Holcomb Boulevard system was built in 1972, the Hadnot Point water system supplied only the Hospital Point housing area and the base industrial areas. Before 1972, the Hadnot Point system also supplied Midway Park, Berkeley Manor, Watkins Village and Paradise Point.

The results of the panel's investigation will be released to former base residents, many of whom are now scattered over the country. The rest of the public will also be notified.

"The circumstances surrounding the Camp Lejeune water contamination issue involve numerous decisions and documents that span more than 20 years," Hagee said in the statement. "It is incumbent upon us to seek answers to relevant and appropriate questions from any available documentation and interviews with former officials."

Hagee said he hoped this move would improve communication with the retired Marines, their families and civil servants who think the contaminated water made them sick.

"Informing and supporting our Marine families remains our top priority, and we must do better to convey this through decisive action and forthright communication," he said.

At Indian Beach on Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., said the government needs to inform people who might have been affected.

"We have to figure out a better way to notify those people," she said.


Staff Writer Mike Sherrill contributed to this report. Contact Thomas Dail at 353-1171 Ext. 229 or at tdail@jdnews.com.


http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=20393&Section=News


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[Dragon Air]

Why did it take 5 years to close the wells? There is no job more important than taking care of our own. I can't believe people are trying to pressuse others into keeping quiet because "you don't want to hurt the Corps." That is sick. That is hurting the Corps.

My Sgt Maj used to instill in us the need to be hones if you screwed up. Just admit. He could handle mistakes.... but not lies and attempts to disguise the error. He had no patience for that or respect for the one that did it.

[thedrifter]

Issue Date: March 22, 2004

Senators criticize panel in Lejeune water case
Members are not qualified or independent, advocates say

By C. Mark Brinkley
Times staff writer

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — The members of an independent panel recently established by the Corps to review the contaminated water situation at Camp Lejeune, N.C., are drawing criticism from two U.S. senators, who claim the members are neither independent, nor fully qualified.
The panel was named March 10 by Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee and tasked with reviewing events at Camp Lejeune between 1980 and 1985 related to decisions to close several contaminated drinking-water wells. Its members include the chairman, former California Rep. Ronald C. Packard, a former Navy dentist and former Republican representative of the state’s 48th District; retired Gen. Richard Hearney, former assistant commandant of the Marine Corps; and Robert B. Pirie Jr., former assistant Navy secretary for installations and environment.

But two of the biggest advocates for creating the panel — Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt. — already have expressed disappointment in the selected members.

“Senator Dole feels the panel the Marines have chosen is outrageous,” said Brian Nick, a spokesman for Dole. “She specifically asked, in a letter to the Navy, for an ‘independent panel,’ and stressed the importance of the panel’s ‘perceived impartiality.’ The Marines have failed on both accounts, and the senator is very eager for this situation to be addressed.”

Jeffords questioned whether the group has the experience to adequately review the case. At question is why the Marine Corps waited five years to close the wells — contaminated by volatile organic compounds — which provided drinking water to many of the base’s family housing areas, and whether the former Marines who once lived there have been properly notified.

“While all three panelists have notable military and government service records, and they certainly understand the duties of commanding a major defense installation, I am distressed at the absence of either a water-quality expert or an environmental engineer,” Jeffords said in a statement. “I question the capacity of the panel to thoroughly investigate the decisions not to close the highly contaminated drinking water wells for a period of five years without such expertise.”

The panel will spend six months reviewing documents and interviewing past and present base officials to create a better understanding of the events that led to decisions made during this five-year period, Hagee said in his announcement. The panel will have free and open access to all relevant information, he said.

“We are deeply concerned about the health issues raised by members of our Marine Corps family and are working diligently to ensure that anyone affected during this period is well cared for,” Hagee said. “Marines take care of each other on the battlefield and in garrison, and this case is no different. A Marine is a Marine for life.”

Jeffords, however, was not impressed by Hagee’s decision.

“While much can be learned by interviewing past officials and officers who served at Camp Lejeune, I feel strongly that the effectiveness and integrity of this panel could be greatly compromised if the panel does not interview those who were personally affected by the drinking-water contamination,” Jeffords said. “In addition to examining why the Marine Corps chose not to close the contaminated drinking water wells, the panel should also explore why the Marine Corps has chosen not to notify all of those who were exposed to the highly contaminated water in areas of family base housing.”

Hundreds of families who lived in the affected housing have reported health problems and birth defects in children born or raised there. Critics of the Corps’ actions at the time claim that thousands of former Marines and their families could have been adversely affected and not know it.

But Marine officials stood behind the panelists, saying they bring the skills needed for such an investigation.

“It was essential that these individuals have some level of familiarity with inner workings of government, background in government policy, base procedures and environmental regulations — all of which will serve as prerequisites for navigating the often complex trail of documents and events,” said Maj. Nat Fahy, a spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters in Washington. “We know that each has the integrity to make impartial decisions as they review records and conduct interviews.”

He said the panel also could seek outside expertise for matters that are unclear.

“Keep in mind also that the panel has no present affiliation with the government and is free to conduct its own inquiry and render its own unbiased opinions,” Fahy said. “The panel is also free to consult with others possessing technical expertise, experience, education and potentially contrarian views.”

Marine officials said a report of the panel’s findings will be submitted to Hagee six months after the panel commences its review, and further information on the panel’s charter and progress will be released as available and appropriate.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=0-MARINEPAPER-2726935.php


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Water panel chief defends his group
March 25,2004
THOMAS DAIL
DAILY NEWS STAFF

The former U.S. congressman named to chair a panel to review the Marine Corps' handling of contaminated wells at Camp Lejeune in the 1980s is defending the independence of his group from critics.

Ronald Packard, a Republican from California who served in the House of Representatives from 1983 to 2001, assumed the reins last week of the three-member panel picked by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee.

The panel - which includes retired Gen. Richard D. Hearney and Robert B. Pirie Jr., a former assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and environment - will review the actions of Marine Corps officials that led to a five-year delay in closing the contaminated drinking water wells.

Some questioned the panel because Hearney and Pirie are retired from high-level military positions. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., has called the panel selections "outrageous," and Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., questioned why Hagee didn't pick any private-sector experts.

This week, Packard said, if Hagee was looking for a puppet, he found the wrong the guy.

"One of the most important goals I have for the panel is that we operate as an independent group," he said. "It's not my style to try to play games and try to play favorites."

He pledged to keep the public informed of the panel's progress. He also said he plans to dig further than old documents by talking to people affected by the contamination.

"We are simply to investigate the facts of the problem," he said. "I don't think our role is to recommend solutions or recommend what they do. We are a fact-finding panel."

While in Congress, Packard represented northern San Diego, southern Orange County and parts of Riverside counties as a Republican in Congress. His district included the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton.

"I really took a personal interest in Camp Pendleton," he said. "I served on Camp Pendleton when I was younger. I was a Navy dentist during the Korean War."

While in Congress, Packard ran into future panel member Hearney, then in charge of napalm disposal at Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station, he said.

After years of storage, seals on some of the old canisters of napalm - a jellied petroleum product more stable than gasoline - cracked. In 1989, California's environmental agency cited the depot for improper storage.

In the late 1990s, depot officials resolved the issue by emptying the canisters and shipping the napalm to facilities where it was recycled into gasoline.

"I didn't see him (Hearney) much," Packard said of his involvement with the Fallbrook depot. "We accomplished our goal."

In Congress, Packard served on several powerful committees, including the Appropriations Committee and Public Works and Transportation. He sat on a public works subcommittee that dealt with water contamination issues and chaired the appropriations subcommittees on military construction and energy and water.

Now, he's a consultant, a job that takes him back to Congress about once a month.

"I'm doing some consulting on water issues here in California," he said. "I represent a couple of the cities."


Contact Thomas Dail at 353-1171, Ext. 229, or at tdail@jdnews.com.

http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=21278&Section=News

Ellie

[thedrifter]

October 07, 2004

Panel: Lejeune officials followed procedures regarding water quality

By Laura Bailey
Times staff writer


A panel studying why officials at Camp Lejeune, N.C., waited five years to close contaminated drinking water wells there in mid-1980s, has found the decision was in keeping with common water quality practices of the time.
“Camp Lejeune provided residents with drinking water at a level of quality consistent with general utility practices of 1980-1985, a period in which water quality regulations were evolving rapidly,” said summary of findings included in the report released Wednesday.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee accepted the final report from the Drinking Water Fact-Finding Panel for Camp Lejeune on Thursday and promised to give it “a thorough review.” Hagee chartered the independent panel to examine the belated closure of the wells. The wells were discovered to be contaminated with “volatile organic compounds,” chemicals used in dry cleaning and weapons cleaning in 1980, but weren’t closed until 1984 and 1985.

The contamination is suspected of causing a high incidence of childhood cancers and other diseases among families who lived on based between 1968 and 1985.

The panel, chaired by former Rep. Ronald Packard, R-Calif., said that environmental personnel at Camp Lejeune did not quickly understand or respond to signs of drinking water contamination due to a “convergence of factors” and rapidly evolving government regulations.

“The base’s approach of not addressing contaminants until regulations required was largely typical of the U.S. water industry,” Packard said. “Although VOCs were a growing concern nationally in the early 1980s, Camp Lejeune did not anticipate or independently evaluate the health risks of these chemicals before they were regulated in drinking water.”

But a U.S. senator who has taken interest in the case is deeply concerned about the results. Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., the ranking member of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, said that while the Environmental Protection Agency debated setting the health-based limit for these contaminates at between 5 and 500 parts per billion, the Marine Corps repeatedly found levels in the thousands.

A number of other factors hindered the base from understanding the significance of the first signs of VOCs, including: the absence of regulatory standards, lack of complaints from base residents about water quality, water sampling errors and inconsistent sampling results, the findings state.

In addition, the base’s environmental division was inadequately funded, staff and trained, according to the report.

The panel also found that the base’s communications with residents were not detailed enough to fully characterize the levels of contamination in the wells.

Read the Camp Lejeune Panel Report to the Commandant.

The public is invited to comment on the report within the next month by e-mailing clsurvey@hqmc.usmc.mil or writing to Drinking Water Fact-Finding Panel for Camp Lejeune, 1530 Wilson Blvd., Ste. 100, Arlington, Va., 22209. All comments made within 30 days from Oct. 6 will be attached to the final report and made available to the public.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-416016.php


Ellie

[thedrifter]

January 17, 2005

Studies on contaminated water at Lejeune may expand

By Laura Bailey
Times staff writer


Studies to diagnose specific diseases and birth defects in families who consumed contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, N.C., decades ago may begin searching for other diseases possibly caused by the water.
The government health agency that is studying the specific diseases and birth defects among families who lived on base between 1968 and 1985 has announced it will convene an expert panel in February to discuss whether more diseases should be examined.

Families who believe they were affected and other members of the public are invited to provide input at a Feb. 17-18 meeting in Atlanta, held by the National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Since 1999, the ATSDR has been surveying families who lived on base, where several wells were discovered in 1980 to be contaminated with chemicals used in dry cleaning and weapons cleaning.

Researchers surveyed 12,600 children born to women who were pregnant at the base between 1968 and 1985.

While they are still evaluating the cases, preliminary results determined that 103 of the children may have suffered birth defects and childhood cancer linked to the polluted water.

But that study looks only at certain diseases and birth defects, such as childhood leukemia, spina bifida, cleft palate and anencephaly, while some families who lived on base claim to have been afflicted by a wide range of health problems.

The meeting will be open to the public, which will be given the chance to speak or provide written statements.

The February meeting will determine which other diseases, if any, should be evaluated, and how feasible such studies would be, said Frank Bove, the senior epidemiologist who is supervising the current study. The further study is being done at the request of Congress.

Critics have said that the Marine Corps should actively notify everyone who lived at the base — a group that family advocates number in the hundreds of thousands — during the years that the polluted wells were used.

Written statements for the meeting should be submitted before Jan. 21, and those who wish to attend must register by Feb. 7.

More information is available at www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/lejeune.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Experts mapping poisons in base water
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 30, 2005
DIANE MOUSKOURIE
DAILY NEWS STAFF

ATLANTA - An independent panel of engineers and scientists are evaluating a federal agency's efforts to map Camp Lejeune's water system so researchers can pinpoint which sections of the supply were contaminated from 1968 to 1985.

The panel was formed to respond to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's efforts at "modeling" the Camp Lejeune water system. The modeling is necessary due to "lack of historical, contaminant-specific data at Camp Lejeune," according to an ATSDR presentation.

Morris Maslia, ATSDR's project officer for the Exposure-Dose Reconstruction Program, told the panel Monday to determine which parts of the base were contaminated with cleaning solvents and other chemicals, the degree of contamination, duration of contamination, and the distribution of exposure to contaminated water.

"We're going to have to time step to get to the period of interest," Maslia said.

The period of interest runs from 1968 to 1985, when parts of Camp Lejeune's water supply were contaminated with tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE). The PCE, which mainly affected base housing at Tarawa Terrace, likely was contaminated by a civilian cleaners after the chemical leaked from a septic tank and into a well about 900 feet away.

The TCE, which contaminated the Hadnot Point water system, likely leaked from on-base underground storage tanks or collected due to spills or waste disposal methods used at the time.

All affected wells were capped. They pose no known danger to current residents.

Right now, Robert E. Faye of the Eastern Research Group, who is helping with the research, said ATSDR is concentrating its efforts on Tarawa Terrace. The contamination at Hadnot Point involves multiple chemicals and sources.

"We deliberately chose Tarawa Terrace because it's the simplest system: It's one source, and it's an identified source," he said. "Tarawa Terrace we felt was the best shot, given the timeframe and given agency (staff) constraints."

The model's primary goal is to integrate its findings with the on-going epidemiological studies so it can be determined if exposure to PCE and TCE caused birth defects to children born at Camp Lejeune such as neural tube defects, oral clefts, or illnesses such as childhood leukemia or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The water-modeling project includes two components: the groundwater model and the water-distribution systems model. During the first day of a two-day public meeting, the panel discussed the groundwater model that ATSDR created during its field investigations and analyses between March and December of last year.

The panel will address the water distribution model today.

In terms of the groundwater model, the panel answered some of ATSDR's questions. They agreed that the Tarawa Terrace model was the best to tackle first and advised that researchers should explore different levels of detail so they can reach the best balance between scientific rigor and time considerations.

Panel members and ATSDR staff also addressed problems. Both groups said a lack of historical data and confusion over when the wells were closed or when connections were made between the Tarawa Terrace, Hadnot Point and Holcomb Boulevard systems - the three systems in question - was a major concern.

Maslia said the agency is unsure when the Holcomb Boulevard water treatment plant was constructed. Maslia also questioned if the Tarawa Terrace water treatment plant closed 1987, why did ATSDR recently receive a 1991 report that says Tarawa Terrace supplied water to Holcomb Boulevard in 1989.

"This chronology has been, at times, chasing a moving target," he said. "It remains sort of changing. We are still in the midst of this data discovery. We are still looking for a timeline that is cast in concrete. We are not satisfied with some components of the timeline at this time."

Panel member Leonard Konikow, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said he sees the dearth of historical data as a very large problem.

"One of my concerns after reading through the documentation is the lack of historical data from '50s, '60s, and on into the '70s," he said. "I see that as presenting a very difficult hurdle to overcome. There's going to be a lot of uncertainty."

Tom Sinks, the acting director of ATSDR, said the panel was formed so ATSDR can perform the best science possible with a good level of transparency.

"In this particular examination, it's a very complex, difficult study we are trying to conduct. We're trying to recreate exposure scenarios that occurred pretty far in the past and do it in a scientifically credible way and also be open to criticism, constructive comments, to let people know what it is we are trying to accomplish," Sinks said.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Fowarding this site which was sent to me...

Ellie

www.watersurvivors.com

[enviro]

My office got word of this back in 1994. (Obviously I was an environmental specialist if the username didn't give it away).

We had strict orders to keep quiet. There are several reasons for it. The main reason was that the potentially affected families had to be notified first. All attempts were made to locate everyone in base housing during that time period and have them tested.

We new it was the cleaners across the street that caused the problem, but didn't know the exent of the damage. Closing wells was really not an option or a consideration since there was no other feasible source of water that we knew we could supply without risking that it was contaminated, too.

I can tell you that millions and millions of dollars has been spent and continues to be spent on this project. And the staff at the Lejeune EMD really do care about the end results here.

This is a rare case of an outside actor on our environment. Normally, we only had ourselves to blame. Prior to 1992, no state or federal inspectors were allowed on base and it was pretty much a free for all. Then Clinton signed the Federal Facilities Compliance Act of 1992 that open our gates to the EPA and state agencies. Thus, my job was created, and thus, I have made my living up until now working in this field. Great.....

[sonofagunney]

Thank you so much for your honesty. Please help support our cause. As small group of victim representatives are going to Washington, DC on September 20 through the 23 to meet with as many representatives in congress as possible. Our Primary Objective is to continue efforts to locate and advise former USMC, USN, civilian employees and dependant family members and have them tested. I was born at Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital in 1958 and so far am the most fortunate in my family. We lost my mother-age 41, in 1974 due to kidney disease, my youngest sister- age 31, in 1976 due to cervical cancer and kidney disease, my brother-age 50, just underwent surgery for colon cancer this year. He lost part of his stomach, bladder, colon and rectum and is now on chemo 3 times a week, and my father- age 74 (The Gunney) suffers from lung cancer and requires oxygen 24/7. I always wondered why our family was infested with serious diseases and our ancestors died from old age or in military service to our country. Please get the word out and refer anyone with questions to www.watersurvivors.com. We're trying all we know to help those affected. Thanks, Dave Martin