"The U.S. Navy is asking government investigators to suppress information concerning
the toxic water scandal
at the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune, according to a letter obtained Thursday by The Huffington Post.
The letter, signed by Maj. Gen. J.A. Kessler of the Marine Corps and dated Jan. 5, 2012, asks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry to withhold from a forthcoming report details about the whereabouts of water lines, wells, treatment plants and storage tanks on the North Carolina military base -- in the name of national security."
(national security my eye)
"Government watchdogs and environmental advocates said they interpret the letter as further evidence of a Navy effort to evade culpability for what many call
the worst and largest drinking water contamination in U.S. history.
As the documentary explains, base officials received multiple warnings from 1980 to 1984 that tests of the drinking water showed toxic chemicals including the solvents trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE), and the fuel additive benzene.
The film, available via streaming on Netflix and iTunes beginning Jan. 17, will take away that "there really needs to be more accountability over the Department of Defense and what they do to the environment here and abroad."
http://www.huffingto....html?ref=green
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2
"Worst/largest H2O contamination in U.S. History."
Started by Shortpoet-GTD, Jan 13 2012 05:54 PM
coverup military tainted water
33 replies to this topic
#3
Posted 13 January 2012 - 09:09 PM
National security as an excuse is BS. They just want to avoid the enormous can of worms it opens up. How many people got sick over how many decades? How much is it going to cost them? How much cancer are they responsible for? They're probably scrambling to figure out how to deny responsibility for causing cancer. And you just know it did. Really looking forward to seeing that documentary.
#4
Posted 13 January 2012 - 10:21 PM
In the past, I have read of dump sites used by the Defense Depart for their experimental chemical work that have been found to be leaking highly toxic compounds into the water supplies. Water plumes leading into sensitive lands and urban areas have been heavily contaminated in the process. As a result this is not surprising at all. I am sure they don't want to deal with the massive lawsuits that could result from the findings going public.
#5
Posted 14 January 2012 - 01:18 PM
Wait, so the warnings happened back in the 80s and now there's a report they're asking to be withdrawn from the records....or there's been new data that they want withheld? What is the water supply situation currently, decades later?
#6
Posted 15 January 2012 - 04:30 AM
Jessi, on 14 January 2012 - 01:18 PM, said:
Wait, so the warnings happened back in the 80s and now there's a report they're asking to be withdrawn from the records....or there's been new data that they want withheld? What is the water supply situation currently, decades later?
(several stories within the link- click on the ones that interest you.)
http://www.tftptf.com/5915.html
From 2007
http://articles.cnn....eaning?_s=PM:US
"For thirty years, from 1957 to 1987, chemicals flowed freely into the water supply used by Marines and their families at Camp Lejeune, a U.S. Marine Corps base in North Carolina.
There were no water-quality regulation standards in place back then.
In fact, it was not until 1981 when military officials first tested the water supply and discovered that two out of eight
water treatment systems on the base were contaminated with a metal degreaser, trichloroethylene (TCE);
a dry cleaning solvent, tetrachloroethylene (PCE); benzene, a highly flammable fuel component;
and other carbon-based chemicals called volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
However, the toxic wells that supplied the Hadnot Point and Tarawa Terrace water systems were not closed down
until 1987 – five years after the discovery."
http://www.alphadisa...aminated-water/
#7
Posted 15 January 2012 - 02:19 PM
Oh geez, that's such a long time. It makes sense that there weren't laws and regulation standards back then, but at the point where there were, I wish they would've done something more immediately. To know they didn't both for another 5 full years is rather ridiculous. I wonder what the actual long term effects of all that were.
#9
Posted 15 January 2012 - 10:49 PM
That was so alarming. There are many contaminations that were not given too much attention because of news block or information shared/reported are too limited as they would say that was not to make the people panic. Just like the gulp oil spill that I am just aware of because of the leak reports online.
Now maybe they could do something about the water problems to make the public safer from those possible healht risks.
Now maybe they could do something about the water problems to make the public safer from those possible healht risks.
#10
Posted 25 January 2012 - 03:36 AM
"The contamination of Camp Lejeune's water supply, which involves several hundred thousand Marines,
sailors, their families and civilian employees who were posted to the installation from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, is a sad chapter in the Marine Corps' history.
In 1963, the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery issued standards for potable water, which stated that drinking water
would be free of any foreign substances, including those known to cause harm and those for which the physiological
effects were not known.
Despite persistent rumors throughout the 1960s that the installation's drinking water had a strange smell and a conspicuous coloration on its surface, Camp Lejeune officials ignored this water safety directive.
The same directive was revised in 1972 to exclude the use of water sources that tested positive for
chlorinated hydrocarbons, compounds found in cleaning solvents, above minute levels.
Installation officials, as they had over the past decade, made no effort to ensure the purity and safety of their drinking water.
Only in 1980 did Camp Lejeune officials contract for laboratory analysis of the post drinking water to determine if total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), a byproduct of chlorinating water, were present at harmful levels.
The Army's Environmental Hygiene Agency found that other contaminants were present in such
high levels that they rendered tests for TTHMs inaccurate.
In a series of lab reports, the Army lab's chief of services informed installation officials in increasingly blunt terms
that solvents were present in high levels.
A private-sector lab reported the same findings. Despite evidence that the installation's tap water was contaminated,
the command group ordered no further tests.
What eventually forced the gradual disclosure by installation officials that Camp Lejeune's water was contaminated was
passage of the Safe Water Drinking Act, which transferred responsibility for administering all laws pertaining to potable water
to the State of North Carolina in 1980.
However, according to testimony given by state officials, only in 1984 were they told of the water contamination.
By 1985, Environmental Protection Agency officials realized the scope of the problem, and recommended that Camp Lejeune be added to its National Priorities List -
that it be named a Superfund site.
Four years later, Camp Lejeune was declared a Superfund site. Eventually, 13 of the installation's wells were found to be contaminated, some of them at levels far above maximum allowable levels.
There was a determination last fall by the EPA that trichloroethylene (TCE), a common chemical degreasing agent, is a human carcinogen, linked to kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, liver cancer.
Along with vinyl chloride and benzene, that brings to three the number of known carcinogens found in high concentrations
in the drinking water at Camp Lejeune over this 30-year period."
http://www.newsobser...unes-water.html
sailors, their families and civilian employees who were posted to the installation from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, is a sad chapter in the Marine Corps' history.
In 1963, the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery issued standards for potable water, which stated that drinking water
would be free of any foreign substances, including those known to cause harm and those for which the physiological
effects were not known.
Despite persistent rumors throughout the 1960s that the installation's drinking water had a strange smell and a conspicuous coloration on its surface, Camp Lejeune officials ignored this water safety directive.
The same directive was revised in 1972 to exclude the use of water sources that tested positive for
chlorinated hydrocarbons, compounds found in cleaning solvents, above minute levels.
Installation officials, as they had over the past decade, made no effort to ensure the purity and safety of their drinking water.
Only in 1980 did Camp Lejeune officials contract for laboratory analysis of the post drinking water to determine if total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), a byproduct of chlorinating water, were present at harmful levels.
The Army's Environmental Hygiene Agency found that other contaminants were present in such
high levels that they rendered tests for TTHMs inaccurate.
In a series of lab reports, the Army lab's chief of services informed installation officials in increasingly blunt terms
that solvents were present in high levels.
A private-sector lab reported the same findings. Despite evidence that the installation's tap water was contaminated,
the command group ordered no further tests.
What eventually forced the gradual disclosure by installation officials that Camp Lejeune's water was contaminated was
passage of the Safe Water Drinking Act, which transferred responsibility for administering all laws pertaining to potable water
to the State of North Carolina in 1980.
However, according to testimony given by state officials, only in 1984 were they told of the water contamination.
By 1985, Environmental Protection Agency officials realized the scope of the problem, and recommended that Camp Lejeune be added to its National Priorities List -
that it be named a Superfund site.
Four years later, Camp Lejeune was declared a Superfund site. Eventually, 13 of the installation's wells were found to be contaminated, some of them at levels far above maximum allowable levels.
There was a determination last fall by the EPA that trichloroethylene (TCE), a common chemical degreasing agent, is a human carcinogen, linked to kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, liver cancer.
Along with vinyl chloride and benzene, that brings to three the number of known carcinogens found in high concentrations
in the drinking water at Camp Lejeune over this 30-year period."
http://www.newsobser...unes-water.html
#12
Posted 23 February 2012 - 05:19 AM
"A documentary about contaminated drinking water aboard Camp Lejeune and a local veteran’s fight for answers
will be February 24th on MSNBC.
MSNBC officials announced Wednesday that they plan to air the film “Semper Fi: Always Faithful” as a
special Feb. 24 at 10 p.m.
The 2011 film, directed by Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon, focused on retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger
and the 1985 death of his 9-year-old daughter, Janey, who spent her whole life at Camp Lejeune.
His quest for answers leads to discoveries about a three decade period of water contamination on the base
and the harm the water may have done to base residents."
http://www.jdnews.co...er-lejeune.html
will be February 24th on MSNBC.
MSNBC officials announced Wednesday that they plan to air the film “Semper Fi: Always Faithful” as a
special Feb. 24 at 10 p.m.
The 2011 film, directed by Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon, focused on retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger
and the 1985 death of his 9-year-old daughter, Janey, who spent her whole life at Camp Lejeune.
His quest for answers leads to discoveries about a three decade period of water contamination on the base
and the harm the water may have done to base residents."
http://www.jdnews.co...er-lejeune.html
#13
Posted 19 May 2012 - 02:54 AM
An update to a decades old story. "We really honor our military" politicians love to spout. Yeah right.
"People don't live at Camp Lejeune, they live "aboard" it, which kind of makes sense. The coastal base is built on a series
of linked wetlands and aquifers, with the lazy New River meandering through it all en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
Beginning in the 1950s, for more than three decades, the worst of Lejeune's contamination intermingled with its water supply.
An estimated 750,000 people regularly drank the water, bathed and swam in it, and inhaled its vapors.
At Hadnot Point, where the 2nd Maintenance Battalion fixed tanks, jeeps, and other fleet vehicles, storage tanks
quietly leaked more than a million gallons of gasoline, forming an underground plume more than 100 feet deep in places,
and nearly as big as the National Mall.
Through it all pumped Well No. 602, which provided water to thousands of people on any given day.
In late 1984, when the military started routinely testing Lejeune's wells,
No. 602 clocked in with 76 times the federal limit for benzene, a carcinogenic gasoline additive.
Heavy-duty chlorinated solvents also flowed freely at Hadnot Point, notably
perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE)—a known human carcinogen that workers used to degrease machinery before dumping or burying the waste at a disposal site up the road.
PCE waste from a nearby dry-cleaning business -TCE readings as high as 1,600 parts per billion—
320 times the current federal limit.
Camp Lejeune now enjoys the distinction of having hosted what is arguably
the most contaminated public drinking water supply
ever discovered in the United States.
It may also be the common thread uniting what appears to be the biggest cluster of male breast cancer cases ever identified."
Source
"People don't live at Camp Lejeune, they live "aboard" it, which kind of makes sense. The coastal base is built on a series
of linked wetlands and aquifers, with the lazy New River meandering through it all en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
Beginning in the 1950s, for more than three decades, the worst of Lejeune's contamination intermingled with its water supply.
An estimated 750,000 people regularly drank the water, bathed and swam in it, and inhaled its vapors.
At Hadnot Point, where the 2nd Maintenance Battalion fixed tanks, jeeps, and other fleet vehicles, storage tanks
quietly leaked more than a million gallons of gasoline, forming an underground plume more than 100 feet deep in places,
and nearly as big as the National Mall.
Through it all pumped Well No. 602, which provided water to thousands of people on any given day.
In late 1984, when the military started routinely testing Lejeune's wells,
No. 602 clocked in with 76 times the federal limit for benzene, a carcinogenic gasoline additive.
Heavy-duty chlorinated solvents also flowed freely at Hadnot Point, notably
perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE)—a known human carcinogen that workers used to degrease machinery before dumping or burying the waste at a disposal site up the road.
PCE waste from a nearby dry-cleaning business -TCE readings as high as 1,600 parts per billion—
320 times the current federal limit.
Camp Lejeune now enjoys the distinction of having hosted what is arguably
the most contaminated public drinking water supply
ever discovered in the United States.
It may also be the common thread uniting what appears to be the biggest cluster of male breast cancer cases ever identified."
Source
#14
Posted 19 May 2012 - 03:02 PM
Is it just me or is it that every time the government screws up on something they use the excuse of national security? It always has and it always will be bull crap. Regardless this is still ridiculous. I hope they can keep better tabs on things from now on.
#15
Posted 19 May 2012 - 04:54 PM
JBMedia, on 19 May 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:
Is it just me or is it that every time the government screws up on something they use the excuse of national security? It always has and it always will be bull crap. Regardless this is still ridiculous. I hope they can keep better tabs on things from now on.
National security=refuge for the guilty
I am so glad that this thread was bumped. There are no adequate words to describe how I feel about this. This is beyond disgusting.
#16
Posted 20 May 2012 - 01:47 PM
As we worry about private industry oil spills, the federal government keeps poisoning these people daily, with no regard for human life. To top it off, these people are serving the country. This is totally unbelievable and ridiculous The entire area should be evacuated.
#17
Posted 22 May 2012 - 08:46 AM
It is pretty sad that the most contaminated drinking water is on a military base and that hundreds of thousands of people were effected by it. I missed seeing the documentary but I am sure I would have got pretty angry about it. I grew up in a military family and lived on several different bases over the years. You really didn't have a choice of where they stationed you, that is just where you and your family would have to live. I feel bad for the families that had to live there and are finding out that their government tried to cover this up. That is a slap to the face of these marines that served their country.
#18
Posted 22 May 2012 - 02:07 PM
And because of all other bs going on in the news-this has been relegated to the back pages, if at all.
This should be front page news every single day.
Maybe they should hold a Memorial Day parade on the base?
"See we honor our vets with parades-but clean water that won't kill them? Not so much."
This should be front page news every single day.
Maybe they should hold a Memorial Day parade on the base?
"See we honor our vets with parades-but clean water that won't kill them? Not so much."
#19
Posted 23 May 2012 - 08:33 AM
Shortpoet-GTD, on 22 May 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:
And because of all other bs going on in the news-this has been relegated to the back pages, if at all.
This should be front page news every single day.
This should be front page news every single day.
#20
Posted 24 May 2012 - 03:48 AM
dissn_it, on 23 May 2012 - 08:33 AM, said:
I agree with you on this, the news only tells us certain stories and they are not always the important ones. I learn more about what is really going on from the internet and websites like altenergyshift.com!
Thank you very much-we try our best to share information.
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