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| Water contamination at Camp Lejeune Marine Base |
Up to a million people may have been affected by contaminated water at Camp Lejeune Marine Base in Jacksonville, NC. The base water was apparently contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals from 1957 to 1987 and some affected Marines are now claiming the USMC knew about the chemicals, failed to do anything about them, and is now subverting information and blocking investigations.
Scientists testifying before Congress claimed the contamination is the worst case ever discovered in a public water system in the U.S. The Marine Corps says it followed all rules of the times and that federal agencies have exonerated the leadership of wrongdoing.
In some cases there are entire families that stayed at the base, for even short periods of time, that have serious medical issues, and others claim family members died from the exposure to contaminants at the base. One former male marine, who has had breast cancer, claims he has found 66 other men who were stationed at the camp who have also been diagnosed with the disease. According to a breast cancer specialist, Dr. John Kiluk, about one in 1,000 men in the general population are at risk of getting breast cancer.
Read the whole water contamination story here and a story about one marine who has chronicled the contaminated water story at Camp Lejeune here.
4 comments:
Yikes, that's terrible! It's decisions like that, to allow toxic levels of chemicals in a public water supply, that make it so important that people drink filtered water.
I lived on Lejeune in 86/87 at the end of this; the water literally tasted like dirt - when I complained about it I was told that I just wasn't used to it. Unfortunately, because of what was in the tainted water filtering (or even boiling) it would not have changed anything. Absolutely despicable.
Water contamination is one of the serious problem of every nation of the world. Doing acts of kindness to the environment can help in some ways to clean and renew the future.
I live at camp lejeune from 2004 to 2007 the water even then would rust my silverware
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