Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Lawsuit

“Internal Marine Corps memoranda from 1980 through 1985 document the progressive discovery of volatile organic compound contamination in the Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point water systems. A 1982 memorandum from base environmental staff to the Commanding General's office identified PCE levels at Tarawa Terrace supply wells at concentrations far exceeding safe limits and recommended immediate action. Separately, 1982–1983 Hadnot Point documents identified TCE, benzene, and vinyl chloride at multiple wells. The documents show that Marine Corps leadership was informed of the contamination problem years before the most seriously affected wells were shut down — and nearly two decades before public health notification reached affected veterans and families.”

“ATSDR's first mortality study compared death rates among male Marines and Navy personnel who served at Camp Lejeune against those who served at Camp Pendleton, tracking outcomes through state death records. The study identified elevated standardized mortality ratios for kidney cancer, multiple myeloma, and cancers of the esophagus and rectum in the Camp Lejeune cohort. Crucially, the study also found elevated rates of Hodgkin's disease and leukemia — conditions consistent with the known carcinogenicity of benzene and TCE. The report explicitly identified the limitations of the analysis and called for larger follow-up studies with longer post-exposure tracking periods, establishing the scientific research agenda that ATSDR would pursue for the next two decades.”

“ATSDR's 2014 Cancer Incidence Study followed 168,000 veterans across 15 cancer types, linking military personnel records to 12 state cancer registries spanning multiple decades post-service. The study found statistically significant elevated risk for kidney cancer (relative risk 1.35), rectal cancer (relative risk 1.47), multiple myeloma (relative risk 1.68), and Hodgkin lymphoma (relative risk 1.47) in the Camp Lejeune cohort relative to Camp Pendleton controls. Women at Camp Lejeune showed elevated liver cancer risk. The study was specifically designed to use Camp Pendleton as a contemporary military control population — removing the confounders of military lifestyle, deployment exposures, and demographic differences — making the excess risk attributable to water contamination exposure the most scientifically defensible conclusion.”

“ATSDR's Tarawa Terrace historical reconstruction project, published between 2007 and 2009, used archival records, soil sampling, groundwater modeling, and former employee interviews to establish definitively that the ABC One-Hour Cleaners dry cleaning establishment — located approximately 1,000 feet upgradient of the Tarawa Terrace water treatment plant — was the primary source of PCE contamination in that system. The reconstruction documented that the business had been disposing of PCE-laden wastewater and waste solvent in drain fields and storm drains for years, allowing PCE to migrate through the sandy soil into the water table and ultimately into the Tarawa Terrace supply wells. North Carolina environmental agency records from 1984 onward documented the source identification and the off-site migration pathway.”

“EPA Region IV correspondence obtained through FOIA requests documents monitoring discussions with the Marine Corps dating to the mid-1980s, including reports of contaminant level exceedances at Hadnot Point that were not publicly disclosed as required by applicable drinking water notification standards. These records show a pattern of communications between federal and military officials about the scope of contamination and remediation timelines that proceeded without any notification to the estimated 900,000 to 1 million individuals who had been exposed. The records also document the EPA's decision-making process around Superfund designation and the data informing its 1989 placement of Hadnot Point on the National Priorities List — providing contemporaneous federal agency acknowledgment of serious risk.”