Camp Lejeune is a U.S. Marine Corps base in North Carolina, and has been a crucial component of USMC training activities since 1942.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has concluded that from (at least) November 1957 to February 1987, soldiers and their families living on-base at Camp Lejeune were exposed to contaminated drinking water.
The water at Lejeune is known to have toxic concentrations in excess of 240 – 3400 times what the government considers a safe level. The following chemicals are knonwn to have been used at Lejeune, with more and more discovered each year (the list know totals over 70 known toxins in the drinking water at Lejeune):
- Tricholorethylene (TCE)
- Perchloroethylene (PCE)
- Benzene
- Vinyl Chloride
The health impacts of this are staggering: a statistically significant number of men stationed at Lejeune have developed breast cancer at rates that far outpace the national rate of breast cancer in men. Birth defects in children have also resulted, including myoletic leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and other forms of cancer rare to children.
If you are a United States Veteran, and have one of these conditions, and served at Camp Lejeune from 1957-1987, there may be a connection between your military service and your current conditions.
As of September 2010, only approximately 200 Veterans had claimed service-connection for their exposure to the toxic filth at Lejuene (of those, only 20 had been granted service-connection). Millions of veterans and their families and their children have been exposed to the foul and contaminated water at Lejuene.
As of yet, however, there is no legal presumption that connects your current cancer or terminal illness or disability to the polluted and toxic water at Camp Lejeune. As of this writing, Veterans still need to prove service-connection directly, secondarily, or by aggravation.
The Honorable Brad Miller, (House of Representatives, North Carolina) has introduced the Janey Ensminger Act, legislation that would establish an assumption that if service members lived at Camp Lejeune from the mid-1950s through the mid-1980s, they will be presumed to have been exposed to the tainted water.
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