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.

• 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?

During the last 20 years, Tallevast residents say dozens of their neighbors have died prematurely. Others are still fighting cancer and beryllium-related health issues.

But a draft Florida Department of Health report on the community blighted by more than 200 acres of polluted ground water found just four cases of cancer.

The report could hardly be more different from a survey by residents that showed about 90 cases of cancer or beryllium-related diseases in the mainly black community.

DOH officials who met with the neighborhood group FOCUS on Monday agreed that their numbers, based on a state database and figures from a local hospital, were wildly off the mark. They also admitted they had studied the wrong ZIP code.

(more)

Although Tallevast has a post office, most Tallevast residents live in a Sarasota ZIP code.

"That's one of the problems of dealing with a statewide database," said Randy Merchant, a DOH administrator. "It's hard to get a handle on what is happening in so small an area."

The results left community leaders upset that state officials had not worked more closely with them to ensure errors like this did not happen.

"We're angry," said Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS. "We're just not sure what road to take. No one ever came into the community to do a study. If you are doing it from behind a desk, you're going to miss a lot."

FOCUS' figures on incidences of cancer came from a door-to-door survey quizzing families about their medical histories.

The community of about 80 homes sits above more than 200 acres of polluted ground water left behind by the former American Beryllium Co., which built parts for nuclear warheads for the federal government for nearly 40 years.

State officials said they will likely get an epidemiologist to conduct a similar door-to-door survey.

The cost would be about $125,000, they said.

State Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said if the DOH cannot fund it he will look for other funding sources.

"I've committed myself to help see that that happens so that the question can be answered and a more accurate picture developed," Galvano said.

Residents in Tallevast have asked Lockheed Martin, the company responsible for the cleanup of the site, to pay for them to move. They have also filed several lawsuits against Lockheed and other companies that operated at the site seeking damages for health issues and falling property values.

Lockheed became the owner of the Tallevast site after the company acquired the former Loral company in 1996. It shut down the plant and sold the property, but not before discovering soil and ground-water pollution on and around the site.

In 2000, Lockheed notified county and state officials of the pollution, which included trichloroethylene, or TCE, a compound linked to liver and kidney cancer and other ailments.

Residents, who were not informed for almost four more years, continued to use well water. Their homes were switched to the county drinking water system in 2004.

FOCUS leaders said they would welcome state officials' repeating their survey.

"We think the state will be better at it," Washington said. "You need to put your feet on the ground and come out here and collect that information."

(less)

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.

(more)

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.

(less)

The Army Corps of Engineers will apparently “do the right thing” when it comes to taking responsibility for treating one source of Cheyenne’s drinking water for trichloroethylene, or TCE, which is a result of Cold War-era nuclear missile maintenance east of Cheyenne.

Paul Johnston, public affairs officer for the Omaha district of the Army Corps of Engineers, said the Corps is charged by the Department of Defense to administer the FUDS (formerly used defense sites) program.

That means taking care of a range of sites, “from missile sites to old training grounds to WWI and WWII bombing ranges and old munitions storage; the whole gamut,” Johnston said.

But right now, the city is paying the $20,000 a year it takes to remove the TCE from the water before it arrives at residents’ taps.

It also paid $600,000 for the aeration basin that removes the chemical when it was first found in 1998, Jane Francis, geological supervisor at the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, said.

“Our first priority is safe drinking water,” Bud Spillman, manager of the water treatment division of the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities, said in a news release. “We can remove the TCE at the treatment plant and do not allow any water contaminated with TCE to be piped to town.”

But before the water from the newly-acquired Belvoir Ranch can be sent to Cheyenne, the aeration basin at the treatment plant will need to be increased, according to a BOPU news release.

“The cost to increase capacity at the aeration basin is a cost that Cheyenne’s residents shouldn’t have to pay,” Spillman said in the release.

[...]

The Army Corps has been studying the contamination in Cheyenne for the last seven years, Francis said.

They’re making slow progress in trying to find out how long the contamination plume is, she added. It is the position of the department that there is one large plume of TCE that is a result of the chemical being used at the Atlas No. 4 missile site.

Johnston said there are two areas of contamination. One is obviously because of the work at the missile site.

The Army Corps is taking full responsibility for that site, he said, and taking steps to clean it up.

But there is a 2- to 3-mile stretch where there is no contamination, and the TCE picks up again about 10 miles from the missile site. The source of the contamination at that site isn’t clear to the Army Corps, Johnston said.

Working with the Environmental Protection Agency and BOPU, “all of us cannot find a firm link between the two contaminated areas,” he said.

That’s as of yet, anyway. In June, Johnston said the Army Corps plans to have more people out in the field doing studies to determine the source of contamination for the second plume.

If it is found that the water is also contaminated because of the missile maintenance, the Army Corps will take full responsibility and clean it up, he said.

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.

A comprehensive cleanup plan for the trichloroethylene (TCE)-contaminated groundwater at the Moses Lake Wellfield Contamination Superfund site has been issued for public review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The site is located just north of Moses Lake and includes the Grant County Airport, the former Larson Air Force Base, and areas south of the airport.

“This cleanup plan takes steps that will protect human health and the environment and restore groundwater quality,” said Lori Cohen, EPA’s Associate Director of the Office of Environmental Cleanup.

The groundwater and soils at the site were contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and other hazardous substances by operations of the former base and industrial activities associated with the aircraft industry. Approximately 1000 acres of groundwater are contaminated with TCE above health based standards and several contaminated soil waste areas are scattered throughout the site. The proposed cleanup is expected to cost about $31 million. TCE is an industrial solvent that was commonly used at this site for stripping paint from airplanes, washing airplane parts, and cleaning missile components.

The proposed cleanup plan calls for:

• pumping out the most highly contaminated water and treating it to remove TCE;
• cleaning up the contaminated soil areas by removing soils contaminated above safe levels;
• restoring the groundwater to its highest beneficial use as a drinking water source; and
• requiring local land use restrictions such as changes to local ordinances, zoning, and property easements to protect the public from contaminated groundwater and soils until cleanup work is completed.

In 1988, TCE contamination was found in three of the City of Moses Lake drinking water supply wells on the base. TCE contamination was also discovered in the Skyline Water System wells located south of the base. Since that time, EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) have been investigating the contamination and cleanup options at Moses Lake. Between 1989 and 1993 the City fixed the three contaminated wells on the former base by deepening the wells. In 2003, the Corps constructed a replacement water supply well for the Skyline Water System. Continued testing has shown that the City and Skyline wells continue to provide reliable, clean drinking water to the community. The Corps and EPA continue to test a representative set of wells (up to 80) at the site. Based on this sampling, five homes have had whole-house filters installed at their wells to remove TCE from the water.

The safe level for TCE in drinking water is set at 5 parts per billion (ppb). The contaminated groundwater at this site contains TCE concentrations above 5 ppb and some areas contain TCE as high as 80 ppb. The primary risks for people who drink water containing TCE in excess of 5 ppb over many years are the potential to experience liver problems and an increased risk of getting cancer.

Researchers studied more than 2,100 men who worked at the Rocketdyne facility in the San Fernando Valley, many of whom were exposed to radiation and chemicals that may have increased their risk for certain cancers. The research team identified 362 men who developed prostate cancer and compared them to 1,805 men of similar age and socioeconomic status who did not get prostate cancer.

The study, done in conjunction with researchers at the Olive View-UCLA Education and Research Institute and the University of Michigan, appears in the February issue of the journal Cancer Causes Control.

"The message from this study for today is that if you're more active, you may be able to prevent this cancer from happening," said Beate Ritz, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher, an associate professor of epidemiology in the UCLA School of Public Health and the study's senior author. "If you have a desk job, do something physically active to counterbalance it."

[...]

The study found that the men who developed prostate cancer were less likely to hold the more physically active jobs. Those that got cancer also were more likely than the control group to be highly exposed to the chemicals that were evaluated, including hydrazine, benzene, mineral oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and trichloroethylene (TCE), which are known or suspected carcinogens.

Wynn and Solis are also asking the Government Accountability Office to examine EPA’s failure to update its current drinking water standard for Trichloroethylene (TCE). An EPA 2001 assessment found TCE was far more likely to cause cancer than previously believed. Despite this assessment and a recommendation from the National Academy of Science, EPA has failed to update its national drinking water standard for TCE.

“The evidence of the dangers of TCE keep piling up and the EPA keeps failing to act,” Wynn added. “Hopefully, GAO can shed some much needed light on the reasons for EPA’s inaction.”

The EPA’s current drinking water standard for TCE allows a maximum of 5 parts per billion, but some have called for a revision of that standard to reduce the maximum amount of TCE allowed in water.

[We] request that GAO review the EPA’s failure to update it current drinking water standard for Trichloroethylene (TCE) following its August 2001 draft risk assessment entitled “Trichloroethylene Health Risk Assessment: Synthesis and Characterization.” The EPA 2001 assessment found that TCE was far more likely to cause cancer than EPA had previously believed. We note that in July 2006, the National Academy of Science (NAS) found “that the evidence on carcinogenic risk and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene has strengthened since 2001” and recommended “that federal agencies finalize their risk assessment with currently available data so that risk management decisions can be made expeditiously.” EPA does not appear, however, to have acted consistently with respect to the findings and recommendations of these major scientific studies to protect the public health.

In conducting your review of the regulatory review process, and associated issues specific to TCE, please examine the following issues:

1. The extent to which EPA’s efforts to revise the TCE drinking water standard complies with the Safe Drinking Water Act’s requirements, and facilitate improvements to public health protection.


2. The obstacles, if any, that have interfered with EPA’s ability to expeditiously revise its standards for TCE.


3. The latest research and what it suggests about TCE’s effects on human health and the environment, including information from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s study related to Camp Lejeune.


4. The number of Department of Defense sites contaminated with TCE and the Department’s role, if any, in delaying or interfering with EPA efforts to update a drinking water standard for TCE.

SEC. 315. NOTIFICATION OF CERTAIN RESIDENTS AND CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AT 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 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 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.

 

It costs more than $1 million to install perchlorate filters on a well, and about $500,000 a year for maintenance.
...
Fontana Water Co. General Manager Mike McGraw said the city spent about $3 million to set up treatment for two contaminated wells.
...
[Colton] has spent more than $4 million to date treating three wells for perchlorate, Medina said. He wouldn't rule out a rate increase.
...
Rialto is suing the Department of Defense and 42 of its contractors, as well as fireworks manufacturers, for perchlorate contamination. One defendant, B.F. Goodrich, gave $4 million to the cities and district.

Rialto has spent about $7.6 million on legal fees and cleanup. It is treating two of its wells for perchlorate contamination.

The City will continue to provide the citizens of Rialto with clean, safe, and affordable drinking water. It will also pursue parties that are responsible for the perchlorate pollution to pay for the clean up of the Rialto-Colton Groundwater Basin. It will repay Rialto’s ratepayers for the costs incurred in forcing the polluters to clean it up.

Henry Garcia, City Administrator

In 1986, when the Department of Defense established the FUDS program, the Army was charged with going back through all available military records to determine when and where the D.O.D. caused contamination, via unexploded munitions, or chemical contamination through the use of compounds now known to be carcinogens, such as trichloroethylene, known as TCE, which was widely used to degrease fighter jets and missiles during the Cold War.

More than 9,000 sites were identified, according to Addison D. 'Tad' Davis, the Army's deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health. He said that at least 2,700 sites around the country have been identified as needing a cleanup...

Another problem the military faces is detecting chemical contamination. Sites that were tested and rendered safe 20 years ago are being revisited, in light of more advanced scientific information.

[...]

"[I]n the past 10 to 15 years, TCE was found to be a carcinogen, so TCE is now very much a priority,'' [Davis] said.

"How it happened is very simple," said Candice [a.k.a. "Candy"] Walters, a spokeswoman for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which has been tasked by the Department of Defense with surveying and cleaning up the sites.

"Since the American Revolution on forward, the U.S. military has trained it's troops to fights wars. And part of that training is training with live ammunition,'' which, Walters said, included firing ranges, aerial bombing, and even cannon practice.

The military bought, rented or leased thousands of stateside properties over the years, she added.

"At the end of the wars, there wasn't a need to have the [military training] installations anymore, so they closed them down and either gave them back to the property owner, or back to the state or county.

"They did what was environmentally acceptable at the time, which was, they dug a patch and buried them,'' Walters said. "They'd sweep up what they could see on the ground, and collect and dispose of them underground.

"What they tried to do when they gave back the land was to say that, in some cases, there could be unexploded ordnances underground. But much of this was farmland, forests, places where no one ever thought people would ever build a housing project there."

KB Homes had hoped to build 461 residences in the 1,595-acre canyon, but those plans have been delayed since the summer of 2006 when Southwick and a cadre of residents who call themselves the "Radiation Rangers" (See: "Dirty Business," Nov. 1, 2007) questioned the safety of the project.

[…]

The Reporter has obtained a December 2007 study of offsite pollution around SSFL prepared by an Arcadia-based environmental engineering firm MWH for Boeing, NASA and the Department of Energy which shows that TCE has been detected in approximately 10 percent of several dozen groundwater samples collected on Runkle Canyon property.

[…]

Around 1.73 million gallons of TCE were used at [Santa Susana Field Laboratory] as a solvent to hose down rocket engines, as the Reporter first revealed during its investigation of the Runkle Canyon-adjacent Ahmanson Ranch development. That project tanked over toxic troubles in 2003 before becoming state park land (See: "Air Apparent," Feb.13, 2003). Approximately 530,000 gallons of the carcinogen, which is a volatile organic compound, have seeped into the area's groundwater. With the current rate of remediating TCE being less than 10 gallons a year at SSFL, it will take more than 50,000 years to clean up.

The Marine Corps takes great pride “in taking care of its own.” Marines who were attached to Marine Wing Support Group 37 at former MCAS El Toro are at risk for potential exposure to toxic chemicals as a result of the contamination of the soil and groundwater. These Marines may have been exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE), suffered serious health consequences, and have no idea of what hit them.

[...]

Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) El Toro was officially closed in 1999. Prior to its closure, El Toro was the subject of a massive environmental clean-up by the Navy. The first indication of chemical contamination came from a routine inspection off the base in1985 when civilian workers discovered trichloroethylene (TCE) in the groundwater. Before its closure, some 25 contaminated sites were found at El Toro. Site 24, the MWSG 37 was one of the most toxic sites and the source of the TCE toxic plume spreading several miles off the base. It took a number of years before the source of the toxic chemicals was known. Most Navy and Marines veterans not living in southern California who were stationed at El Toro have no knowledge of the toxic chemicals found on the base, its eventually closure in 1999, and sale at a public auction in 2005. Some of these veterans were exposed to these toxins and likely became seriously ill.

[...]

The Marine Corps can remedy this situation without incurring great costs by: (1) establish a link on the existing 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing website (http://www.3maw.usmc.mil/) to register and inform all MWSG-37 Marines stationed at El Toro of the potential exposure to contaminated soil and groundwater; (2) request the various Veteran Service Organizations to alert their memberships of the contamination associated with former MCAS El Toro; and (3) and use Public Service announcements to alert Marines who do not have access to the internet.

A cancer-causing industrial solvent has been found coursing in huge levels through the water table under Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.

One test showed the trichloroethylene, or TCE, at 18,000 parts per billion, or ppb. A follow-up test put it at 3,900 ppb.

By a quirk of geology, the water table drains into Indian Field Creek, which flows directly into the York River.

Years after those tests, the TCE level is now 800 ppb. But the landfill thought to be creating the pollution has yet to be entirely cleaned up, despite the off-the-charts sample data.

TCE is just one of many serious pollution problems at the secretive Navy base. More than 30 polluted sites have been identified, and about half have been cleaned up.

This is travesty. People who are willing to give their lives for their country deserve better. At the very least, they should be guaranteed a certain quality of life that includes safe drinking water.

• The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten
• THE STAND

I have read several recent newspaper articles that state DOD has identified 1,400 DOD sites that are contaminated with TCE. Do you happen to have a copy of or know where I can obtain the underlying documentation for that statement?

• 76% of the Superfund sites have TCE contamination (432 of 566)
• 17% of Superfund sites with TCE contamination are DoD facilities (75 of 432), 20% are some sort of federal facility (89 of 432)
• 83% of federal facility superfund sites are contaminated with TCE (89 of 106), 84% of these are DOD sites (75 of 106)
• Source: CERCLIS3/Superfund Reporting Center 06/13/2006