thedrifter
05-14-09, 06:52 AM
Hagan wades in to Lejeune water contamination issue
Comments 12 | Recommend 6
May 13, 2009 - 12:26 PM
AMANDA HICKEY and JENNIFER HLAD
Sen. Kay Hagan plans to mail a letter to the acting Secretary of the Navy, BJ Penn, this afternoon requesting a meeting to learn more about contaminated water aboard Camp Lejeune. She's also interested in information gaps that caused the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to remove a 1997 public health assessment from its Web site.
The letter asks Penn to meet with her and Sen. Richard Burr "to determine what has caused these informational gaps. Some victims and their families have been waiting two decades for closure," she said during a Wednesday morning press conference.
Hagan told media that she was not sure if the information was simply overlooked or if the omission was on purpose.
"I'll have to wait until we actually have an opportunity to talk to (Penn)," she said.
Retired Marines who believe their family members died because of exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune are praising the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's decision to remove the assessment.
The agency withdrew the assessment because "new facts have come to light since the original PSA was published in 1997 that have led us to the conclusion that we need to revisit the conclusions in the study," Jeff Dimond, a contractor for the ATSDR, said in an e-mail to The Daily News.
Two major drinking water systems at Camp Lejeune were contaminated from at least the mid-1950s until 1987. The chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetracholoroethylene (PCE), came from spills, a dump site on base, leaking underground storage tanks on base and an off-base dry cleaner.
"When we originally conducted the study, ATSDR scientists were under the impression that wells that (had) shown high levels of benzene in tests had been shut down and were not pumping water into the drinking water system on the base. Subsequent to the publication of the PHA, facts began coming to light that contradicted this assumption," Dimond said.
Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine whose daughter died of leukemia at the age of 9, after in utero exposure to the contaminated water, is one of many former Camp Lejeune residents who challenged the previous assessments. On April 9, he sent an e-mail to an ATSDR scientist, asking why benzene had been omitted from the 1997 PHA and referencing several reports from 1984 showing "actionable levels of (benzene) in water supply wells serving the Hadnot Point water distribution plant."
"This is one more reason why this PHA should be pulled down in its entirety and rewritten upon completion of the water modeling efforts at Camp Lejeune," he wrote.
The assessment was removed later that month.
Tuesday, Ensminger said he was glad the agency had pulled the previous PHA, partly because it said there was no threat to adults exposed to the contamination.
"This is good," he said. "We've got too many people who are sick," with diseases that are scientifically linked to chemicals, to say there is no correlation.
"How do you deny it?" Ensminger said.
Ensminger, reached by phone on Capitol Hill, where he was working to get VA benefits for veterans with diseases linked to contaminants, blamed the Marine Corps for allowing ATSDR to omit benzene from the assessment.
Capt. Amy Malugani, a spokeswoman for the Marine Corps, said "information regarding benzene levels in potable wells was available to ATSDR at the time of the assessment, (but) it was not considered as part of the 1997 PHA."
"The Marine Corps is committed to using the best available science in addressing any issue that may impact our Marines, their families and our civilian employees," she said.
Tom Townsend, a retired Marine Corps major also has long contended the chemicals caused cancer and other diseases in adults - including his wife and son. When the 1997 PHA was withdrawn, Townsend said he thought it "was a ray of hope."
"I thought it was going to be something beneficial, that ATSDR had taken (the 1997 PHA) out of the public domain, because it was so erroneous."
Then, Townsend said, he learned that the ATSDR had posted a new document online, called the "May 8, 2009 Update to the 1997 Camp Lejeune Public Health Assessment."
The update states that new information has emerged since the original study, including that communities served by the Holcomb Boulevard water distribution system were exposed to contamination for longer than believed in the assessment, and that benzene was present in a well in the Hadnot Point water system.
However, while many viewed the decision to withdraw the assessment as an acknowledgment that the contamination posed a threat to adults, the update does not draw any conclusions about who may have been impacted.
At one point, the update states that ATSDR "has insufficient information to determine if children or adults were adversely affected by these exposures."
Later, it says the agency "declared those past exposures (to chemicals) a public health hazard and we maintain that position today."
The ATSDR is already conducting water modeling studies of Camp Lejeune, which are scheduled to be complete next summer. Ensminger said he hopes to see a new PHA after that water modeling is complete.
Malugani said the Marine Corps "is eager to have answers to take the next appropriate step."
"The Marine Corps looks forward to the completion of the scientific studies in hope that the results will lessen the uncertainty that many former Marines, residents and civilian employees have experienced regarding past water contamination at Camp Lejeune," she said.
Contact military reporter Amanda Hickey at 910-219-8461 or ahickey@freedomenc.com. Visit the Lejeune Deployed blog at http://lejeunedeployed.freedomblogging.com.
Ellie
Comments 12 | Recommend 6
May 13, 2009 - 12:26 PM
AMANDA HICKEY and JENNIFER HLAD
Sen. Kay Hagan plans to mail a letter to the acting Secretary of the Navy, BJ Penn, this afternoon requesting a meeting to learn more about contaminated water aboard Camp Lejeune. She's also interested in information gaps that caused the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to remove a 1997 public health assessment from its Web site.
The letter asks Penn to meet with her and Sen. Richard Burr "to determine what has caused these informational gaps. Some victims and their families have been waiting two decades for closure," she said during a Wednesday morning press conference.
Hagan told media that she was not sure if the information was simply overlooked or if the omission was on purpose.
"I'll have to wait until we actually have an opportunity to talk to (Penn)," she said.
Retired Marines who believe their family members died because of exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune are praising the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's decision to remove the assessment.
The agency withdrew the assessment because "new facts have come to light since the original PSA was published in 1997 that have led us to the conclusion that we need to revisit the conclusions in the study," Jeff Dimond, a contractor for the ATSDR, said in an e-mail to The Daily News.
Two major drinking water systems at Camp Lejeune were contaminated from at least the mid-1950s until 1987. The chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetracholoroethylene (PCE), came from spills, a dump site on base, leaking underground storage tanks on base and an off-base dry cleaner.
"When we originally conducted the study, ATSDR scientists were under the impression that wells that (had) shown high levels of benzene in tests had been shut down and were not pumping water into the drinking water system on the base. Subsequent to the publication of the PHA, facts began coming to light that contradicted this assumption," Dimond said.
Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine whose daughter died of leukemia at the age of 9, after in utero exposure to the contaminated water, is one of many former Camp Lejeune residents who challenged the previous assessments. On April 9, he sent an e-mail to an ATSDR scientist, asking why benzene had been omitted from the 1997 PHA and referencing several reports from 1984 showing "actionable levels of (benzene) in water supply wells serving the Hadnot Point water distribution plant."
"This is one more reason why this PHA should be pulled down in its entirety and rewritten upon completion of the water modeling efforts at Camp Lejeune," he wrote.
The assessment was removed later that month.
Tuesday, Ensminger said he was glad the agency had pulled the previous PHA, partly because it said there was no threat to adults exposed to the contamination.
"This is good," he said. "We've got too many people who are sick," with diseases that are scientifically linked to chemicals, to say there is no correlation.
"How do you deny it?" Ensminger said.
Ensminger, reached by phone on Capitol Hill, where he was working to get VA benefits for veterans with diseases linked to contaminants, blamed the Marine Corps for allowing ATSDR to omit benzene from the assessment.
Capt. Amy Malugani, a spokeswoman for the Marine Corps, said "information regarding benzene levels in potable wells was available to ATSDR at the time of the assessment, (but) it was not considered as part of the 1997 PHA."
"The Marine Corps is committed to using the best available science in addressing any issue that may impact our Marines, their families and our civilian employees," she said.
Tom Townsend, a retired Marine Corps major also has long contended the chemicals caused cancer and other diseases in adults - including his wife and son. When the 1997 PHA was withdrawn, Townsend said he thought it "was a ray of hope."
"I thought it was going to be something beneficial, that ATSDR had taken (the 1997 PHA) out of the public domain, because it was so erroneous."
Then, Townsend said, he learned that the ATSDR had posted a new document online, called the "May 8, 2009 Update to the 1997 Camp Lejeune Public Health Assessment."
The update states that new information has emerged since the original study, including that communities served by the Holcomb Boulevard water distribution system were exposed to contamination for longer than believed in the assessment, and that benzene was present in a well in the Hadnot Point water system.
However, while many viewed the decision to withdraw the assessment as an acknowledgment that the contamination posed a threat to adults, the update does not draw any conclusions about who may have been impacted.
At one point, the update states that ATSDR "has insufficient information to determine if children or adults were adversely affected by these exposures."
Later, it says the agency "declared those past exposures (to chemicals) a public health hazard and we maintain that position today."
The ATSDR is already conducting water modeling studies of Camp Lejeune, which are scheduled to be complete next summer. Ensminger said he hopes to see a new PHA after that water modeling is complete.
Malugani said the Marine Corps "is eager to have answers to take the next appropriate step."
"The Marine Corps looks forward to the completion of the scientific studies in hope that the results will lessen the uncertainty that many former Marines, residents and civilian employees have experienced regarding past water contamination at Camp Lejeune," she said.
Contact military reporter Amanda Hickey at 910-219-8461 or ahickey@freedomenc.com. Visit the Lejeune Deployed blog at http://lejeunedeployed.freedomblogging.com.
Ellie