ShareThisIt may be impossible to know whether contaminants in drinking water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina through the mid-1980s harmed the health of people who lived and worked on the Marine base, or harmed children born to mothers who did, according to a new report by the National Research Council.
The report, commissioned by the U.S. Navy at the direction of Congress, surveyed studies that have been done on the effects of two chemical solvents and other chemicals, including benzene, that made their way into two major water wells on the base. As many as 1 million people may have used the water for drinking, bathing, cleaning or swimming from the 1950s, when the chemicals likely first reached the water, until 1985, when the Marine Corps closed the wells.
Following discovery of the contamination, 1,548 claims seeking $33.9 billion in compensation have been filed with the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Office. None has been paid.
The study released Saturday is one of two the Navy was awaiting to determine whether exposure to the water could be linked definitively to birth defects, childhood leukemia and adult illnesses such as liver damage and breast cancer.
"On the one hand, several lines of scientific reasoning suggest such effects are unlikely to have occurred ... " the report concludes. "On the other hand, the possibility that health effects have been produced by the contaminant exposures at Camp Lejeune cannot be ruled out."
The other study, designed to estimate the extent of exposure to the tainted water, is expected this year or in 2010.
The study released Saturday notes that members of the panel that created it disagreed as to the risk the contaminated water posed. But the members were in general agreement, it says, that with so many years having gone by, and with incomplete information about who used the water how often and for how long, the Navy should not expect to get better answers from more research.
"The committee concludes that there is no scientific justification for the Navy and Marine Corps to wait for the results of additional health studies before making decisions about how to follow up on the evident solvent exposures on the base and their possible health consequences," the report concludes. "The services should undertake the assessments they deem appropriate to determine how to respond in light of the available information."
Historically, the Veterans Administration has denied medical benefits to Marines who served at Lejeune and who sought treatment for problems they believed were caused by exposure to the contaminated water.
Jerry Ensminger, whose daughter died with childhood leukemia he believes was the result of in-utero exposure to solvents in the water, was appalled at the report's conclusions.
"They take the liberty of shooting down almost any health effects to people who would have been exposed," Ensminger said of the panel. "It's a known fact that there were actionable levels of these contaminants in the supply wells."
If such levels of chemicals can be considered safe, he said, "Why do we even have the standards? Why do we have a Safe Drinking Water Act? Why do we have an EPA?"
E-mail Martha Quillin at martha.quillin@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8989
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C.
