Late last week, the judges overseeing the Camp Lejeune Justice Act cases rejected the government’s attempt to block evidence from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
This evidence uses computer models to reconstruct how and when drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, especially during the 1950s to 1980s when actual water testing was limited.
Related content: Camp Lejeune Justice Act Series
The ATSDR’s simulations show that areas like Hadnot Point and Tarawa Terrace were contaminated with chemicals such as trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, and benzene from sources like fuel leaks and a nearby dry cleaner.
Holcomb Boulevard mostly had clean water, but sometimes received contaminated water from Hadnot Point.
These models help pinpoint where and when people were exposed and support health research into issues like cancer and birth defects.
The judges said the government’s effort to exclude this evidence was inconsistent, especially since the government itself had previously relied on ATSDR’s work to link contaminated water to disease.
The court found the ATSDR’s research crucial for proving causation and criticized the government for trying to undermine its own scientific findings with weak arguments about minor technicalities.
Background:
In 1982, Camp Lejeune’s water supplies were formally tested and found to be contaminated, but the worst of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water wells remained open until 1985. Camp Lejeune residents were first notified about water contamination in June 1984 via a base newsletter, which downplayed the extent of exposure. More specific notifications about contaminated wells being shut down followed later in 1984 and 1985, but many people didn't learn the full truth until news reports in the late 1990s. The U.S. Marine Corps officially began notifying past residents in 1999 as part of a federal health study.
The contaminants at Camp Lejeune came from leaking underground storage tanks, waste disposal sites, industrial area spills and an off-base dry-cleaning firm – and testing found that three of the base’s eight water treatment facilities contained contaminants – including those that supplied water to barracks and family housing at several locations.
A study published in Environmental Health in 2014 reported samples taken at Camp Lejeune between 1980-1985 primarily contained tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene and their breakdown products, trans-1,2-dichloroethyline and vinyl chloride. Benzene was also found in the water.
According to the CDC, studies in animals have shown that long-term exposure to tetrachloroethylene can cause cancers of the liver, kidney, and blood systems, and changes in brain chemistry.
More than one million people may have been exposed at the base near Jacksonville.
Enacted 40 years after the government testing showed drinking water contamination aboard the base, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022 allows people who lived, worked, or were exposed to the toxic water for at least 30 days between 1953 and 1987 to sue the U.S. government for harm caused by that exposure.
Part of the Honoring Our PACT Act, the law removed previous barriers to lawsuits and established a lower standard of proof, requiring plaintiffs to show the contaminated water was at least "as likely as not" the cause of their illness.
Victims had two years from the date President Joe Biden signed the act to sue the federal government for compensation for illnesses caused by the water contamination – a window that closed last fall.
Currently, there are more than 400,000 pending claims with the Department of the Navy, but despite that overwhelming number, not a single case has gone to trial and there have been just a few settlements.
