On Tuesday, legislation passed allowing for those affected by the tainted water on the North Carolina marine corps base from 1953 to 1987 to file a federal lawsuit seeking compensation from the federal government.
The Camp Lejeune Justice Act has been in the making for four decades and will offer support to those who were harmed from toxic water exposure.
The road to get the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022 passed has been met with much opposition from the Department of Defense and the Supreme Court banning those affected by the tainted water from suing the government. This important Act will carve out a new precedent moving forward as the U.S. government has acknowledged a link between the toxic water on the base and a plethora of very serious illnesses.
The final step to make this bill a law is for President Biden, who was already in favor of this bill, to sign it into law – anticipated to be done right away.
Once President Biden signs, those that have lost parents, children (even in-utero), or are sick themselves can now seek some form of justice. The law establishes a two-year window for Veterans and family members to make a claim as long as they were on the base for at least 30 days between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987.
Decades of Abandonment
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune was founded in 1942 as a training base for Marines to practice beach landings – a key piece in winning World War II.
The Navy engineers that designed the base drew its water from a shallow aquifer that quickly became polluted from military activities.
The tasteless and odorless contaminants were not discovered until 1985 and once the poisoned wells were identified, they were shut down. Four short years later Camp Lejeune was labeled a hazardous waste site under the federal Superfund law. This prompted an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find out if the base contained any threats to human life.
When hazardous compounds were found in the water system, officials on base fought off any wrongdoing due to the fact that the contaminants located were not yet regulated by state or federal agencies. When federal scientists urged the Navy and Marine Corps to further investigate, they argued that the research was not necessary and would not yield any reliable results.
900,000 People Suffered
An estimated 900,000 people were assigned to Camp Lejeune during 1953-1987. There have been many diseases linked to the toxic water at Camp Lejeune, including:
- Leukemia
- Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
- Kidney Cancer
- Liver Cancer
- Scleroderma
- Multiple Myeloma
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Aplastic Anemia
- Myelodysplastic Syndromes
Other health conditions linked to the toxic water exposure at Camp Lejeune include:
- Esophageal cancer
- Breast cancer
- Bladder cancer
- Ovarian cancer
- Prostate cancer
- Lung cancer
- Renal toxicity
- Female infertility
- Birth defects
- Miscarriage
- Hepatic steatosis
- Neurobehavioral effects
Camp Lejeune’s Baby Heaven
The number of women who lived on base while pregnant who had miscarriages or still births is shocking. There is even a cemetery near Camp Lejeune that contains a section that is known as “baby heaven” as there are many gravestones for infants.
There are also a staggering number of children who suffered serious birth defects or developed cancers, like leukemia – all traced back to the contaminated water supply at Camp Lejeune. Continue reading
