U.S. Marines Dying from Drinking Water Contamination

By William Levesque, St. Petersburg Times

The last years of Marine veteran Ian Colin MacPherson’s life were spent fending off one puzzling ailment after another. Rashes. Headaches. Vertigo. Nausea. And finally, the abnormally aggressive prostate cancer that killed the Riverview man at age 46 in 2004.

MacPherson always figured he must have been poisoned. But by whom?

His widow, Jody MacPherson, believed she found the culprit last year: MacPherson’s beloved Marine Corps. “They killed him,” she said.

Camp Lejeune, a sprawling Marine base on the North Carolina seaboard, is the site of what some scientists call the worst public drinking-water contamination in the nation’s history. Its water wells were tainted with cancer-causing industrial compounds for 30 years, ending in 1987.

An estimated 500,000 to 1 million people – including Marines and family living on base housing – drank, bathed and cooked using that fouled water.

Congress has dubbed ill Marines “poisoned patriots,” and in 2008 lawmakers ordered the Marines to notify those who might have been exposed.

So far, almost 10,000 affected Floridians have registered with the Marines to take part in a health study, the highest total for any state except North Carolina. About 1,500 claims have been filed against the government seeking $33.8-billion in damages.

Among the chemicals detected in high concentrations at Camp Lejeune are a metal degreaser, trichloroethylene (TCE) and a degreaser and dry-cleaning agent called tetrachloroethylene (PCE).

PCE appears to have been dumped by a private dry cleaner near one of the water wells, while the TCE was dumped by the Marines, according to documents and investigators. Federal limits on the chemicals are 5-parts-per-billion. The highest level of Camp Lejeune water for TCE was about 1,400-parts-per-billion. PCE was found at levels over 200-parts-per-billion.

The Marines discovered the water contamination in 1980, yet waited four years to close contaminated wells and then minimized the danger to Camp Lejeune residents, critics say. Two wells were later reopened for almost two years during a water shortage. In 1985, Lejeune’s commander told residents “minute” levels of contaminants had been found, failing to disclose that a lab had informed the Marines that water was “highly contaminated.”

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Source:  TampaBay.com