(UPDATE: Though we’ve not yet had a chance to review it, here is a PDF copy of the official complaint – not yet including exhibits.)
(UPDATE II: Complaint now also available for download with exhibits)
While we’re working to obtain a copy of the official complaint, here’s what we know so far:
On July 4, 2009, Laura J. Jones, through her attorneys, filed a lawsuit against the the federal government claiming that her health problems, including non-hodgkins lymphoma, resulted from toxic water at Camp Lejeune. A nice touch, we think, filing suit against the government on Independence Day.
The suit was filed under authority of the Federal Tort Claims Act. The act allows citizens to sue the federal government in court for money based on “personal injury or death caused by caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government.” (28 U.S.C.A. § 1346(b))
The official title of the case is Laura J. Jones v. United States of America, case number 7:2009cv00106 7:09-cv-00106-BO.
The case was filed in the Eastern District Court of North Carolina and was assigned to Judge Terrence W. Boyle.
The case is filed on behalf of Jones as a single plaintiff with additional cases expected to be filed in the future. No news on whether a class action filing is expected.
According to a news report from NBC17 in North Carolina:
The suit says the government knew for at least five years that chemicals such as tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, dicloroethylene, vinyl chloride and benzene contaminated the water supply in high doses, but let the wells stay open.
Lawyers say the toxic water led to cancer and other health problems.
[...]
The suit contends that if the military had followed its own regulations that had been in place since the 1950s, the contamination would not have happened.
According to a CBS News 9 report, Jones lived on the base from 1980 to 1983 and was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma 20 years later.
Jones’s case will rely, in part, on military documents that outline the military’s policy for maintaining a safe water supply.
Jones currently lives in Iowa and suffers from fibromyalgia and immune disorders. She was not well enough to attend the Monday’s press conference announcing the lawsuit.
Below is a video containing excerpts from the press conference, provided courtesy of NBC17:
Scientists studying drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune were startled when 11 men with breast cancer and ties to the North Carolina base were identified over the last two years.
Six more have been found in one week.
Five additional men with breast cancer and a sixth who had a double mastectomy after doctors found precancerous tumors contacted the St. Petersburg Times last week after reading a story about the 11 men with the rare disease.
“This male breast cancer cluster is a smoking gun,” breast cancer survivor Mike Partain said on Friday. “You just can’t ignore it. You don’t need science to tell you something is wrong. It’s common sense. It begs to be studied.”
[...]
Male breast cancer is exceedingly rare. Just 1,900 men are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year compared with nearly 200,000 women, the American Cancer Society says.
A man has a 1-in-1,000 lifetime chance of getting the disease.
Men who get it are often over 70, though it is rare even in older males. Of the 17 men identified by Partain and the Times, just three are over 70 — the youngest was Partain at 39 — and many have no family history of breast cancer, male or female, according to interviews.
[...]
If you or a family member lived at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and have been diagnosed with male breast cancer, the St. Petersburg Times is interested in talking to you. Please call reporter William R. Levesque at (813) 269-5306 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 5306.
Anyone who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune in 1987 or before can register with the Marine Corps for a health survey. To register or to get more information, visit https://clnr.hqi.usmc.mil/clwater/ or call (877) 261-9782.
Partain’s comment refers to a highly-questionable report proffered recently by the National Academy of Sciences which ignored significant available evidence and reached suspiciously preposterous conclusions including, amongst others, that further study of the poisoned population at Camp Lejeune should be both limited and discounted.
For over a year now, McDowell County’s Omar McCourry has been digging into the history of Old Fort industry and of environmental protection in the community.
Spurred by the tragic death of his brother, Curtis, to brain cancer in 2004, he learned that his brother’s illness was not unique in Old Fort, despite the condition’s relative rarity among the greater population.
Word of mouth led him to suspect that an alarming number of folks in Old Fort had succumbed to the same illness. He has been lobbying public health officials to investigate ever since.
[...]
In 1989, more than 100 barrels of industrial waste were located buried on the site of the former Old Fort Finishing. These were excavated and found to contain dozens of chemicals as well as metals including lead, mercury, arsenic. EPA documents McCourry obtained said that 70 of the barrels had been crushed or decayed when they were unearthed.
The article notes that residential well water samples have detected TCE and PCE at levels exceeding federal safety thresholds for at least 20 years. The article fails to mention that scientists and health agencies worldwide have long-since established that TCE and PCE are neurotoxic and cause cancer.
Not only do local health officials appear typically disinterested, but a local Senator has decided to participate in what feels like an ongoing, nationwide charade:
As McCourry had been told when he brought his findings to the attention of state authorities, in any given population group, if they live long enough, a great number of them would be diagnosed with cancer. It is very difficult, they said, to identify a “cluster” of cancer cases that might indicate a pattern, or implicate an environmental toxin.
Senator Joe Sam Queen echoed that theme in his comments to The McDowell News.
“Cancer is a condition that touches every family eventually,” he said. “We are all interested in a situation that may involve or jeopardize the health of children.
Translation: People die, suck it up.
The Senator’s comment is one that we hear frequently, and it remains a transparent excuse for inaction. The Senator and local/state health officials should give this matter the attention it deserves rather than idly hiding behind their stuff happens party line.
This just in. We’re getting more details, will have update next week:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — LAWSUIT TO BE FILED REGARDING CAMP LEJEUNE WATER CONTAMINATION
The law offices of Anderson Pangia & Associates, PLLC (offices in Washington, D.C. and Winston Salem, North Carolina) and Smorto, Persio, Webb & McGill (of Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), will file on Monday July 6 a lawsuit arising from the toxic drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune. The lawsuit alleges that the United States Government, through agents within the Department of Defense, knowingly exposed hundreds of thousands of Marines, sailors, their family members, and civilian employees to highly contaminated drinking water on the base at Camp Lejeune, while at the same time actively disseminating disinformation to those exposed in an effort to minimize the significance of the exposure.
The complaint, to be filed in federal court in the Eastern District of North Carolina, attaches numerous documentary exhibits in support of its allegations that the government knowingly, recklessly and/or negligently violated its own standards, rules and regulations by permitting the exposure to continue after the government was specifically warned the drinking water was “highly contaminated with . . . solvents!” and advised that “these appear[] to be at high levels and hence more important from a health standpoint. . . ” The lawsuit will allege that the Department of the Navy had regulations in place as early as 1963 which prohibited the contamination and which would have averted it had those regulations been obeyed; subsequently in 1974 the Commanding General of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina put in place additional regulations governing the proper disposal of the very same chemicals which were discovered later to be contaminating the drinking water; had these regulations been obeyed, the contamination likewise would have been prevented. This same 1974 base order declared these “organic solvents” to be hazardous, the lawsuit states.
Many scientists have called the drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune the worst in the nation’s history. The contaminated drinking water was consumed by an estimated one million people.
The lawsuit will allege that exposure to the toxins caused numerous health problems including cancers, reproductive disorders and birth defects, among other maladies.
Joseph Anderson, Michael Pangia and Kevin Persio, the lawyers responsible for filing the suit, will answer questions of the media at a press conference to be held in front of the North Carolina State Capitol building, 1 East Edenton St. Raleigh, NC 27601 at 1:30 p.m. on Monday July 6, 2009. Call (336) 414-7958 for more information.
We received this statement by email Wed evening (emphasis ours):
Statement in response to National Research Council report on Camp Lejeune:
We are disappointed and dismayed at the report titled, “Contaminated Water Supplies at Camp Lejeune – Assessing Potential Health Effects,” released by the National Research Council (NRC) on Saturday, June 13, 2009. This report was two years in preparation by scientists, many of whom we know and respect, that reached puzzling and in some cases erroneous conclusions. We are aware of the complex situation regarding availability and access to data, and each of us has participated in committees advising the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) about how to move forward with health studies. It is our view that the Marines and their families who were exposed to dangerous chemicals in the Camp Lejeune drinking water over several decades deserve to know if this exposure has had an effect on their health. The most direct way to assess this is to conduct valid epidemiologic studies of those who lived or worked there, and we urge ATSDR to continue their efforts to carry these to conclusion. The overall judgment about the impact of the chemicals on health can then be informed both by the general scientific literature the NRC reviewed, plus findings from directly relevant studies of the exposed population.
Specific areas where we disagree with the NRC report include their assessment of the water distribution modeling, their assessment of the risk caused by exposure to two of the principal contaminants (TCE and PCE), and the likelihood of conducting meaningful epidemiologic studies in this setting. We view the water modeling undertaken by ATSDR and its consultants as “state-of-the-art” and worth carrying through to completion so that it can be used in the on-going and proposed health studies. There may be uncertainties about specific levels of exposure for individual households or people, but these can be described in the study results. We also agree with the National Toxicology Program that TCE and PCE are “reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens” and reject the characterization of the evidence as “limited/suggestive” as presented in the NRC report. We note that this characterization of solvent mixtures actually steps back from previous work done by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine in 2003. Finally, we disagree with the thrust of the NRC report that it is unlikely that scientifically informative epidemiologic studies of the Camp Lejeune population can be done. The NRC doubts that “definitive” answers can come from any study, but this sets the bar too high – no one study can provide definitive answers, and all studies must be considered in the light of other scientific evidence. From our experience in other settings, we believe that useful studies of the Camp Lejeune population are possible and furthermore that the Marines and their families deserve our government’s best efforts to carry them out.
For these reasons, we urge the ATSDR to consider this particular NRC report in the context of other expert advice they have received during the past decade and the competent work already done by agency staff. Since the NRC report is at such variance with the recommendations of other water modeling and epidemiologic experts, we believe it should not stand as the final word.
Sincerely,
Ann Aschengrau, Sc.D., Professor, Associate Chair of the Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health
Richard Clapp, D.Sc., MPH, Professor, Boston University School of Public Health
David Ozonoff, MD, MPH, Professor and Chair Emeritus of the Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health
Daniel Wartenberg, Ph.D., Professor, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Senator Burr’s office issued the following press release Wednesday:
From: Smith, Samantha (Burr)
Sent: Wed Jun 17 17:49:09 2009
Subject: Senator Burr Presses on Camp Lejeune Water Contamination at Hearing
Burr Presses on Camp Lejeune Water Contamination at Hearing
Burr questions Navy on NAS report
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
CONTACT:
David Ward
Samantha Smith
Phone:(202) 228-1616
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support held a hearing on military construction and environmental initiatives. U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, raised concerns about the recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on water contamination at Camp Lejeune and pressed the Navy for answers.
“It’s clear that the water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated by a number of hazardous chemicals at unsafe levels,” Senator Burr said. “I am deeply concerned about the conclusions in the report from the National Academy of Sciences. This latest report still raises more questions than it answers.”
The NAS panel report, released on Saturday, concludes the water systems at Camp Lejeune were in some cases highly contaminated by two hazardous chemicals, although the NAS also stated that it could not say for sure whether the people exposed to these chemicals may have suffered adverse health outcomes as a result. The report lists fourteen diseases and health conditions that may have a link with human exposure to the chemicals indentified in the Camp Lejeune water system.
In addition to questions at today’s hearing, Senator Burr has written a letter to the Secretary of the Navy seeking answers to additional, detailed questions.
“I will continue to seek additional answers from the Department of the Navy, and I also intend to seek further input from the scientific community,” Burr said. “Former Marines, their families, and former employees at Camp Lejeune have waited far too long for answers, and we need to start working toward a resolution.
The following press release was issued yesterday (emphasis ours):
HAGAN WANTS A CONCLUSION TO THE ONGOING CAMP LEJEUNE WATER CONTAMINATION ISSUE
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – US Senator Kay R. Hagan (D-NC) issued the following statement reacting to a new National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study on water contamination at Camp Lejeune. The study, released Saturday, concludes that while there was water contamination at the Jacksonville Marine base, additional research is “unlikely to determine conclusively whether Camp Lejeune residents were adversely affected by exposure to water contaminants.” Hagan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been very active in working to determine whether the Navy and Marine Corps should have handled water contamination at Camp Lejeune differently.
“The NAS study released Saturday is simply a review of previous scientific literature on hydrocarbon solvents, reports on Camp Lejeune water contamination, and published epidemiologic and toxicological studies,” said Hagan. “However, it failed to take into account the conclusions of previous epidemiological studies that found an association between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) exposures and childhood leukemia, and presents some direct contradictions to the EPA’s maximum containment levels of VOCs in drinking water. Moreover, the NAS study barely mentioned benzene and vinyl chloride and severely downplays the established links between adverse health effects and exposure to VOCs that were present in the water at Camp Lejeune. For these reasons, I cannot stand behind the validity of the NAS study.
The NAS study neglected to address key historical documents, also omitted in previous studies, regarding verified high levels of benzene found in an operating well on July 6, 1984 in the Hadnot Point water system and the 1979 leak of 20,000-30,000 of fuel at the near-by Hadnot Point fuel farm.
“The resolution of this issue cannot be held hostage to additional scientific studies that may not tell us anything more than we already know. The time has come for Congress, the Department of the Navy, and the Marine Corps to work together to develop a plan to resolve the longstanding issue of water contamination at Camp Lejeune. We already know that exposure to VOCs in drinking water is linked to adverse health effects,” Hagan continued. “While it is important that we allow the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to complete its water modeling simulation and pending epidemiological studies for personnel and residents affected at Camp Lejeune, ongoing work on these simulations and studies need not foreclose action by Congress and the administration to reach an appropriate resolution.”
Last week, Hagan sent a letter to the Navy along with Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) asking 14 detailed questions to determine if there was prior knowledge of TCE (trichloroethylene), PCE (perchloroethylene), benzene, and vinyl chloride in the water supply before the wells were shut down. The Navy and Marines Corps have until June 25th to respond. Hagan and Burr plan to meet with the Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to address these questions and the conclusions of the NAS study before August.
A report by the National Research Council, Contaminated Water Supplies at Camp Lejeune – Assessing Potential Health Effects, was released yesterday. Money quote:
The available scientific information does not provide a sufficient basis for determining whether the population at Camp Lejeune has, in fact, suffered adverse health effects as a result of exposure to contaminants in the water supplies.
[...]
[T]hese limitations cannot be overcome with additional study. Thus, 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.
Though we’re not yet through the whole thing, the report appears to raise more questions than it answers — not so much about the exposed poisoned population at CL, but about the mindset, approach and conclusions of the NRC.
Like Mike Partain, Bill Smith is a male breast cancer survivor who was exposed to toxins at Camp Lejeune, NC. Bill was kind enough to share his story with us:
After graduating from Florida State University with a journalism degree, William J. P. Smith, Jr. served in the USMC from 1956 until 1959, stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC, the majority of the time with the Globe as sports editor and acting editor of the largest Corps newspaper at the time. While there, he married, residing at the trailer park on the base and later in Midway Park, while fathering two girls.
In 1994, Bill was diagnosed with breast cancer, and had a radical modified mastectomy with 30 lymph nodes removed from his left side. He was treated with Tamoxifin for five years, and has had no reoccurance. It should be noted that there was no history of any kind of cancer in the Smith family. His former wife and two girls have had no symptoms of the disease.
On behalf of women, Bill has been a fund raiser and is the subject of two books, Living with Breast Cancer, the Story of 39 Women and One Man by Perry Colemore and Lisa Adelsberger, and Messages from Somewhere, Inspiring Stories of Life After 60 by Harriet May Savitz. He has also written an autobiographical screenplay on his experience.
The irony of all of this is that Bill was part of the team at Xerox Corporation that introduced xeroradiography for the early detection of breast cancer in 1969 at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit. Every once in a while, he takes the press kit from his library shelf and shares it with his students, who find it hard to believe that men can contract the horrific disease.
Today, Bill resides in Tallahassee, FL with his wife Kathy, teaches at FSU and runs an integrated marketing communications consultancy, Huckleberry Finn Tomorrow.
There are now at least 4 men known to have developed breast cancer after exposure to toxins at Camp Lejeune. With fewer than 2,000 new cases of male breast cancer diagnosed each year, we wonder:
What are the odds of finding 4 cases of male breast cancer from the same contaminated military base?
How many other military men have developed breast cancer?
Mike Partain is a breast cancer survivor. He was diagnosed years after his exposure to toxins at Camp Lejeune, NC. Tallahassee.com tells his story:
Poisoned at Camp LeJeune, snookered by Uncle Sam
Bill Berlow
Associate Editor
Mike Partain, son and grandson of Marine Corps veterans, grew up steeped in traditional American values — a rock-solid Reagan Republican whose life, even before birth, began among the few, the proud, at Camp LeJeune, N.C.
But for the past year, the 40-year-old Tallahassee insurance claims adjuster’s faith in his government has been shaken to its core.
He’d always assumed that Uncle Sam, first and foremost, had the health and welfare of U.S. citizens at the top of his priority list — especially if they’d worn the uniform.
Now he’s much less sure.
Partain’s crisis of doubt began a year ago, when his wife gave him “a hug that changed my life.” She found a lump, which turned out to be a cancerous tumor. A 14-inch surgical scar where Partain’s right breast used to be is the physical evidence of his breast cancer.
Less obvious is the psychological scar — both as a cancer survivor still undergoing treatment and as one who feels his government betrayed a trust.
Not long after he learned he had cancer, Partain found out that his recurring rash since birth and his breast cancer — rare among men, particularly those with no family history of the illness — probably stemmed from his exposure during fetal development and the first year of his life to water contaminated with tetrachloroethylene, a solvent used in dry cleaning.
Just two months after Partain’s wife felt the lump, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry acknowledged that Marines and their families who between 1957 and 1987 lived in the LeJeune neighborhood where his family lived, drank water contaminated with extremely high levels of the carcinogenic chemical.
Partain and a network of former LeJeune residents who believe their serious health problems are due to the poisoning point out, however, that the government first knew of the contamination in the early 1980s — but did little or nothing to let the former Marines and their families know they were at risk.
“At this time last year, I was dying and I didn’t know,” Partain said. “The government knew I was dying and didn’t tell me. That burns me up.”
The LeJeune families can’t sue the feds, since the government hasn’t waived its sovereign-immunity protection. The military, meanwhile, is protected by the Ferris Doctrine, a 1950s-era ruling that protects the armed services from legal action by the men and women who serve — the idea being that if a soldier was wounded in battle because of a commanding officer’s dumb decision, the country would be worse off if the government had to battle personal-injury lawyers as well as foreign enemies.
I first met Partain in the fall of 2006, several months before his diagnosis. He was the adjuster for an insurance claim we filed. A former teacher from Winter Haven, where he grew up, he and I talked of his deep regret about having to give up teaching to support his wife and four children. That conversation even helped inspire a column about ex-teachers in November of that year.
Last year, after he told me his illness motivated his involvement in a crusade to reveal the truth behind the LeJeune environmental debacle, the Tallahassee Democrat reported his story on July 9, a few weeks after a congressional hearing on the LeJeune families.
A congressional investigation is still under way, and Partain has gotten help from U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Monticello, who called Partain’s story and that of other LeJeune families “deeply troubling, to say the least.”
Boyd’s office, which has tried to navigate the federal and military bureaucracies for Partain, said he is one of seven constituents in the congressman’s North Florida district who are seeking more information related to the LeJeune contamination.
Now Partain reluctantly acknowledges that he’s an activist, a word he’s still not comfortable with because of his conservative upbringing and beliefs.
When I likened the experience of the LeJeune Marine families to military victims of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, Partain agreed.
“Defend, deny and delay,” he said, describing the government’s strategy in the face of claims that Agent Orange was responsible for a slew of veterans’ illnesses. “And that’s what they’re doing to us.”
Partain (strashni@comcast.net) was to share his story last night with vets at the American Legion post on Lake Ella. Even though he doesn’t realistically expect compensation from the government, it’s part of his personal commitment to spread the word about those exposed to the poison, estimated to number upwards of a million Americans.
It’s one more example of a government’s betrayal — always shocking, but, sadly, no longer surprising and, as Partain says, quickly forgotten.
The Aberdeen Contaminated Ground Water site in Aberdeen, North Carolina has been proposed for addition to EPA’s National Priorities List (NPL) of hazardous waste sites. It is one of six hazardous waste sites to be proposed for addition to the NPL, while twelve sites nationally are being added to the list.
The Aberdeen Contaminated Ground Water site is about 1 acre in size and located on highway Route 211 in Aberdeen, Moore County, N.C. Powdered Metal Products (PMP) manufactured precision machine parts at the facility from 1980 until 1995. The operation utilized a trichloroethene (TCE) dip-vat as part of the manufacturing process. During the investigation of ground water contamination at the Geigy Chemical Corporation NPL site in 1990, which is located just on the other side of State Route 211, TCE, lead and pesticide contamination was detected in numerous private wells along Crestline Lane and Route 211. Investigations have identified contaminated soils in the vicinity of the former TCE dip-vat utilized by PMP as the source of TCE contamination in the ground water.
Trichloroethene also was detected in the town’s municipal water supply wells No. 5 and No. 9, according to an EPA report [PDF]. The level of the chemical exceeded the federal Safe Drinking Water Act maximum contaminant level.
The report said the town took the wells offline for some time and is now blending water from those wells with water from other municipal wells to reduce the trichloroethene levels.
The EPA provided municipal water supplies to 56 residences and businesses in the area, according to the agency.
Read the EPA press release here. For the full Fayetville Observer article, see here.
Several readers have informed us of difficulties they have had in reaching the Camp Lejeune plaintiffs’ lawyers that we mentioned in previous posts. We have recently learned why. According to the Anderson Pangia website:
Anderson Pangia & Associates, together with liason counsel Kevin Persio, continues to aggressively prosecute cases on behalf of those injured as a result of the water contamination at Camp Lejeune. However, due to limited resources and the need to focus on cases best positioned to test the legal and scientific issues in the litigation, please note that NEITHER ANDERSON, PANGIA NOR MR. PERSIO ARE ACCEPTING NEW CAMP LEJEUNE CASES AT THIS TIME. Please check this website periodically as this status may change. Thank you for your patience.
At this time, we are not aware of any other firms who have agreed to represent Camp Lejeune plaintiffs. We are, however, keeping our ear to the ground. We will provide an update here if we learn of any other firms getting involved. If you would like to be alerted directly when we learn more, drop us a quick note with your email address via the contact link above or send an email to tceblog [at] gmail.com.
President Bush recently signed the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. In doing so, he approved a provision requiring notification to marines, families, and employees who may have been exposed to contamination at the base. The language of the bill provides:
SEC. 315.NOTIFICATION
OF CERTAIN RESIDENTS AND CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AT
w:st=”on”>CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA,
OF EXPOSURE TO DRINKING WATER CONTAMINATION.
(a) Notification of Individuals Served by Tarawa
Terrace Water Distribution System, Including Knox Trailer Park- Not later than
1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy
shall make reasonable efforts to identify and notify directly individuals who
were served by the Tarawa Terrace Water Distribution System, including Knox
Trailer Park, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, during
the years 1958 through 1987 that they may have been exposed to drinking water
contaminated with tetrachloroethylene (PCE).
(b) Notification of Individuals Served by
class=SpellE>Hadnot Point Water Distribution System- Not later than 1
year after the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
completes its water modeling study of the Hadnot
Point water distribution system, the Secretary of the Navy shall make
reasonable efforts to identify and notify directly individuals who were served
by the system during the period identified in the study of the drinking water
contamination to which they may have been exposed.
(c) Notification of Former Civilian Employees at
Camp Lejeune- Not later than 1 year after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy shall make reasonable
efforts to identify and notify directly civilian employees who worked at Camp
class=SpellE>Lejeune during the period identified in the ATSDR drinking
water study of the drinking water contamination to which they may have been
exposed.
(d) Circulation of Health Survey-
(1) FINDINGS- Congress makes the following findings:
(A) Notification and survey efforts related to the
drinking water contamination described in this section are necessary due to the
potential negative health impacts of these contaminants.
(B) The Secretary of the Navy will not be able to
identify or contact all former residents and former employees due to the
condition, non-existence, or accessibility of records.
(C) It is the intent of Congress that the
Secretary of the Navy contact as many former residents and former employees as
quickly as possible.
(2) ATSDR HEALTH SURVEY-
(A) DEVELOPMENT-
(i) IN GENERAL- Not
later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the ATSDR, in
consultation with a well-qualified contractor selected by the ATSDR, shall
develop a health survey that would voluntarily request of individuals described
in subsections (a), (b), and (c) personal health information that may lead to
scientifically useful health information associated with exposure to
trichloroethylene (TCE), PCE, vinyl chloride, and the other contaminants
identified in the ATSDR studies that may provide a basis for further reliable
scientific studies of potentially adverse health impacts of exposure to
contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.
(ii) FUNDING- The Secretary of the Navy is
authorized to provide from available funds the necessary funding for the ATSDR
to develop the health survey.
(B) INCLUSION WITH NOTIFICATION- The survey
developed under subparagraph (A) shall be distributed by the Secretary of the
Navy concurrently with the direct notification required under subsections (a),
(b), and (c).
(e) Use of Media To Supplement
Notification- The Secretary of the Navy may use media notification as a
supplement to direct notification of individuals described under subsections
(a), (b), and (c). Media notification may reach those individuals not
identifiable via remaining records. Once individuals respond to media
notifications, the Secretary will add them to the contact list to be included
in future information updates.
Congratulations to all of those who helped make this happen.
The topography and geology of the area where the contaminated wells were found suggest that the contamination may not be related to the CTS site, said David Dorian, on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
“I don’t think that at this point in time there is adequate data to say anything definite about the source,” Dorian said. “We shouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that this is linked to CTS. Further investigation is warranted.”
The N.C. Division of Environment and Natural Resources plans to conduct more soil sampling near the contaminated wells to determine the contamination source, said Harry Zinn, an environmental engineer with the state’s superfund division.
“It’s not totally outside the realm of possibility that there is another source in the vicinity,” he said.
Why is EPA going out of its way to defend CTS here? What is their motivation?
Of the 66 wells sampled, one active well showed the presence of Trichloroethylene (TCE) in excess of EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL), the level established to be protective of human health. The well is located approximately three-fourths of a mile northeast of the site. The sampling also detected trace quantities of cis-1,2-Dichlorethylene, a breakdown product of TCE, below the MCL. EPA provided bottled water to the affected residence and re-tested the well in question. The second set of sampling confirmed the presence of TCE at the level indicated by the original testing.
NCDENR also identified all active residential wells in the immediate area of the contaminated well. On January 8, 2008, NCDENR tested eight wells not previously tested during the November and December sampling events. Of the eight wells, one well, located immediately east of the contaminated well, contained TCE below the MCL. No contaminants were detected in the other five wells.
The latest round of testing came in response to state testing in August that found levels of the industrial solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE, in areas around the former plant had not significantly decreased as a result of cleanup efforts at the site, which removed more than 1,600 pounds of the solvent from soil underneath the building in a little over a year of operation.
On the Citizen-Times’comments page, Representative Charles C. Thomas calls the developments here “a true tragedy.” Not only does he claim this represents “a dereliction of duty on the part of state and federal government of the highest order,” but he firmly states, “Those who are responsible must be held to account.”
Speaking of being held to account, according to a previous press release, EPA and NCDENR also conducted some sort of vapor intrusion study in December. If they are prepared to answer questions about it tomorrow night (as they say here), why no mention of the vapor intrusion study results in the press release or news?
REMINDER: EPA will hold a public meeting to discuss the activities at the Mills Gap Groundwater Contamination site on Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. at the Skyland Fire Department (9 Miller Road, Asheville, N.C.). EPA, NCDENR, Buncombe County Health Center,and ATSDR will all be present to answer questions and explain que paso.
Years ago, University of North Carolina (UNC) Hospitals and Department of Chemistry disposed of benzene, chloroform, methylene chloride and trichloroethylene by burying them underground in containers near Horace Williams Airport. Over time the contaminants leaked into the surrounding soil and groundwater. Now, UNC is taking steps to clean things up.
The University first committed to cleaning the area in 2003, when it signed a voluntary agreement with the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The cleanup is expected to cost about $4.5 million and should be finished by the end of the summer. It will not affect the airport’s operation, said Larry Daw, an environmental specialist for UNC’s Department of Environment, Health and Safety.
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UNC used the site from 1973 to 1979 to dispose of lab chemical waste generated by the campus and what was then N.C. Memorial Hospital. Although it has since been outlawed, burying waste was permissible under state laws at the time.
“It was a common practice in those days to dispose of waste in that manner,” Daw said. “After that time period, there were some new laws coming into effect.”
EPA to Hold Public Meeting for Mill’s Gap Groundwater Contamination Site in Skyland, N.C.
Release date: 01/14/2008
Contact Information: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov
(Atlanta, Ga. – Jan. 14, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a public meeting on Thursday, January 31, 2008 regarding current activities at the Mill’s Gap Groundwater Contamination site in Skyland, N.C. EPA, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR), Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and Buncombe County Health Center officials will provide information and answer questions about recent sampling related to the site and an enforcement update.
The public meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Skyland Fire Department, 9 Miller Road, Skyland, N.C. Community members interested in obtaining additional information are encouraged to contact Sherryl A. Carbonaro, EPA Community Involvement Coordinator, at (678) 575-7355.
The site is located off Mills Gap Road, approximately one mile east of Skyland, in Buncombe County, N.C. and consists of approximately nine acres of maintained grounds containing a large, single-story building. In 1952, IRC, Inc. (IRC) bought the land and constructed the building which was used for its electroplating operations. In 1959, IRC sold the property to CTS, Inc (CTS). From 1959 to 1986, CTS operated an electroplating facility at the site. In 1987, Mills Gap Road Associates (MGRA) purchased the site and is the current owner. Environmental sampling has indicated the subsurface beneath the former plant is contaminated with the chemical compound trichloroethylene (a.k.a. trichloroethene or TCE) as well as petroleum products. In 1999 TCE was discovered in nearby springs and one residential drinking water well. This past December, EPA and DENR commenced more extensive sampling that included expanded residential well sampling and vapor intrusion sampling at homes in close proximity to the site.
ATTENTION: A media availability session will be held at the Skyland Fire Department, 9 Miller Road in Skyland, N.C. from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 31, 2008. Officials will be available to answer media questions concerning current activities underway at the site. This arrangement will allow for the public to use the entire public meeting to get information and have their questions answered.
For a history of known contamination, testing, and clean-up efforts at the site from 1953 to September 2007, see this PDF timeline created by the Buncombe County Health Department.
Big day in the TCE world today, marked by 1 word: LEGISLATION.
Okay, maybe two words: PROPOSED LEGISLATION
Today, Senators Clinton, Dole, Boxer, Lautenberg, and Kerry introduced a bill that proposes to:
Amend the Safe Water Drinking Act to protect the health of susceptible populations, including pregnant women, infants, and children, by requiring a health advisory, drinking water standard, and reference concentration for trichloroethylene vapor intrusion, and for other purposes.
Cited formally as the “Toxic Chemical Exposure Reduction Act of 2007″ (get it? “TCE Reduction Act”?) the Senators have proposed that EPA revise the national standard for allowable TCE levels in public drinking water, create a national standard for allowable TCE in indoor air, and enforce nationwide monitoring and cleanups based on these new standards. All of this is proposed to occur within the 3-18 months of the bill’s enactment.
Since the details of the bill are interesting and worth comment, we’ll post them here shortly. For now, we’ll say this: We think this bill, if passed and enforced, could go a long way towards better protecting the public from TCE.
Of course, if the EPA chooses to or is forced to play politics, we also envision ways that they could still stagnate change even if the bill is passed…
As we said, more to come from us on this. Meantime, you can download the full bill here.
Lastly, we are in the process of contacting Senators from our home state, Connecticut, to ask for their support for this legislation. We strongly urge readers to contact their state Senators as well.
(If any readers do contact their Senators for support, please consider letting us know the kind of feedback you receive. If we’re able to keep track of whom has pledged their support, we’ll keep readers posted by running updates on this blog. What could possibly be more exciting?)
UPDATE: For the official press release from Senator Clinton announcing the proposed legislation, see here.