Poisoned Patriots Contaminated Drinking Water At Camp Lejeune

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.

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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.