A Camp Lejeune Update: EPA Finally Admits that Chemical in Camp Lejeune Water Caused Cancer
October 14, 2011
A chlorinated solvent used for three decades at a U.S. Marine Corps base has been deemed a carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), confirming the suspicions of those who contracted rare illnesses after living on the base.
Trichloroethylene (TCE), used primarily as a degreaser for metal, was utilized at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina from the 1950s to the 1980s. The EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System announced in late September that exposure to TCE might lead to kidney and liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It may also cause bladder, esophageal, prostate, cervical, and breast cancers, as well as leukemia.
About 750,000 people were exposed to TCE at Camp Lejeune. Of these, more than 70 men developed an extremely rare form of male breast cancer. For about three decades the water supply at Lejeune was contaminated with chemicals from an off-base dry-cleaning company and industrial solvents used to clean military equipment.
Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) has introduced legislation in Congress (the Caring for Camp Lejeune Veterans Act of 2011), which would provide hospital care, medical services, and nursing home care for veterans and family members who became ill as a result of the TCE contamination.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
