Contaminated Water Supplies At Camp Lejeune

In the early 1980s, two water-supply systems on the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were found to be contaminated with the industrial solvents trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE). The water systems were supplied by the Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point watertreatment plants, which served enlisted-family housing, barracks for unmarried service personnel, base administrative offices, schools, and recreational areas. The Hadnot Point water system also served the base hospital and an industrial area and supplied water to housing on the Holcomb Boulevard water system (full-time until 1972 and periodically thereafter). This book examines what is known about the contamination of the water supplies at Camp Lejeune and whether the contamination can be linked to any adverse health outcomes in former residents and workers at the base.

While the big bad corporation has often been the offender in many of the world’s greatest environmental disasters, in the case of the mass poisoning at Camp Lejeune the culprit is a revered institution: the US Marine Corps. For two decades now, revelations have steadily emerged about pervasive contamination, associated clusters of illness and death among the Marine families stationed there, and military stonewalling and failure to act. Mike Magner’s chilling investigation creates a suspenseful narrative from the individual stories, scientific evidence, and smoldering sense of betrayal among those whose motto is undying fidelity. He also raises far-reaching and ominous questions about widespread contamination on US military bases worldwide.

Evaluating Water Quality to Prevent Future Disasters, volume 11 in the Separation Science and Technology series, covers various separation methods that can be used to avoid water catastrophes arising from climate change, arsenic, lead, algal bloom, fracking, microplastics, flooding, glyphosphates, triazines, GenX, and oil contamination. This book provides a valuable resource that will help the reader solve their potential water contamination problems and help them develop their own new approaches to monitor water contamination. Highlights reasons for potential water catastrophes Provides separation methods for monitoring water contamination Encourages development of new methods for monitoring water contamination

Across the United States, thousands of hazardous waste sites are contaminated with chemicals that prevent the underlying groundwater from meeting drinking water standards. These include Superfund sites and other facilities that handle and dispose of hazardous waste, active and inactive dry cleaners, and leaking underground storage tanks; many are at federal facilities such as military installations. While many sites have been closed over the past 30 years through cleanup programs run by the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. EPA, and other state and federal agencies, the remaining caseload is much more difficult to address because the nature of the contamination and subsurface conditions make it difficult to achieve drinking water standards in the affected groundwater. Alternatives for Managing the Nation's Complex Contaminated Groundwater Sites estimates that at least 126,000 sites across the U.S. still have contaminated groundwater, and their closure is expected to cost at least $110 billion to $127 billion. About 10 percent of these sites are considered "complex," meaning restoration is unlikely to be achieved in the next 50 to 100 years due to technological limitations. At sites where contaminant concentrations have plateaued at levels above cleanup goals despite active efforts, the report recommends evaluating whether the sites should transition to long-term management, where risks would be monitored and harmful exposures prevented, but at reduced costs.

From the environmental activist, consumer advocate, and renowned crusader comes a riveting book that is "part memoir, part non-fiction report, and part call-to-action—a plea to readers to engage with the water crisis in America because no one else is going to do the work for you" (InStyle Magazine). Clean water is as basic to life on planet Earth as hydrogen or oxygen. In her long-awaited book—her first to reckon with the condition of water on our planet—Erin Brockovich shows us what’s at stake. She writes powerfully of the fraudulent science disguising our national water crisis: Cancer clusters are not being reported. People in Detroit and the state of New Jersey don’t have clean water. The drinking water for more than six million Americans contains unsafe levels of industrial chemicals linked to cancer and other health issues. The saga of PG&E continues to this day. Yet communities and people around the country are fighting to make an impact, and Brockovich tells us their stories. In Poughkeepsie, New York, a water operator responded to his customers’ concerns and changed his system to create some of the safest water in the country. Local moms in Hannibal, Missouri, became the first citizens in the nation to file an ordinance prohibiting the use of ammonia in their public drinking water. Like them, we can each protect our right to clean water by fighting for better enforcement of laws, new legislation, and stronger regulations.

At hundreds of thousands of commercial, industrial, and military sites across the country, subsurface materials including groundwater are contaminated with chemical waste. The last decade has seen growing interest in using aggressive source remediation technologies to remove contaminants from the subsurface, but there is limited understanding of (1) the effectiveness of these technologies and (2) the overall effect of mass removal on groundwater quality. This report reviews the suite of technologies available for source remediation and their ability to reach a variety of cleanup goals, from meeting regulatory standards for groundwater to reducing costs. The report proposes elements of a protocol for accomplishing source remediation that should enable project managers to decide whether and how to pursue source remediation at their sites.

Witnesses: Jeff Byron; Mike Gros; Jerome Ensminger; Robert Dickerson, Jr., Command. Gen., Camp Lejeune, NC; Kelly Dreyer, Environ. Restoration Program Mgr., U.S. Marine Corps; Pat Leonard, Office of the Judge Advocate Gen., Claims, Invest., and Tort Litigation; Thomas Sinks, deputy dir., Nat. Center of Environmental Health, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), accomp. by Frank Bove, Sr. epidemiologist, ATSDR, and Morris Maslia, environmental engineer, ATSDR; Peter Murtha, Dir., Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, EPA; Marcia Crosse, Dir., Public Health and Military Health Care Issues, GAO; Franklin Hill, Superfund Div., EPA. Illustrations.