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thedrifter
06-04-08, 07:44 AM
Retired Marine set to testify about risks of toxic base water

Ensminger lost child to cancer
June 4, 2008 - 12:11AM
JENNIFER HLAD
THE DAILY NEWS

A retired Marine whose daughter died of leukemia after drinking contaminated water at Camp Lejeune is headed to Washington to talk to a Congressional subcommittee about the importance of keeping a current database of information about the risks of chemical exposure.

Jerry Ensminger was asked to testify before the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology next week. The subcommittee is examining the integrated risk information system (IRIS), a database established in the '80s to provide a single source of information about the risks associated with specific chemicals, according to a subcommittee press release.

"They want me to come up there as a victim of some of these chemicals, as an example of why this is so important," Ensminger said Tuesday.

Ensminger's daughter, Janey, was 9 when she died in 1985. Since he learned about the contamination he says caused Janey's cancer, he has become a well-known advocate for service members, families and others who drank the tainted water.

Talking to the subcommittee is "another opportunity for me to get the message out," he said.

Two major drinking water systems at Camp Lejeune were contaminated from the mid-1950s until 1987 by chemicals from spills, on-base underground storage tanks, disposal practices and an off-base drycleaner. The main chemicals found in the water were a degreaser - trichloroethylene, or TCE - and a dry-cleaning solvent - tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Keeping an up-to-date database of chemicals and the risks associated with exposure is crucial, Ensminger said, but IRIS has not been maintained as it should.

"Ultimately, what is suffering here is public health," he said.

Roughly 700 new chemicals enter the market each year, and each is added to the more than 80,000 already reported by the Toxic Substances Control Act, according to a May press release on the subcommittee's Web site. The Environmental Protection Agency also estimates the information about 480 chemicals in the database needs to be updated, the press release reads.

In the past two years, only four new chemicals have been listed on IRIS, Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller, D-N.C., said in the release.

"EPA scientists produced 15 or so assessments in each of these years, but the assessments disappeared into the abyss of elaborate, endless reviews, mostly behind closed doors. The system is fundamentally broken and cries out for reform," Miller said.



Contact interactive content editor Jennifer Hlad at jhlad@freedomenc.com or 910-219-8467.

Ellie