Camp Lejeune: Contamination and Compensation, Looking Back, Moving Forward
Opening Statement By Chairman Brad Miller
The title of today’s hearing is: “Camp Lejeune: Contamination and Compensation, Looking Back, Moving Forward.”
For thirty years, as many as one million Marines and their families training and living on the base at Camp LeJeune were exposed to toxic chemicals in their drinking water. Solvents such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) and by-products of fuel such as benzene leeched into the base water supply and were consumed by Marines, their wives, their children and by members of the community who worked on the base.
We will never be certain about all the adverse health consequences that come from consuming that toxic cocktail, but we can be certain that some Marines and some dependents will develop cancers that will shorten their lives. We are certain that the Marine Corp failed to close the wells promptly when they were informed of the presence of TCE and PCE in their water. Instead, they provided that water to their people for two more years.
The wells were shut down in the mid-1980s. For the two decades since, the Marine Corp leadership and the Department of the Navy have denied that they have a water problem. Because “no law was broken” and the contaminated wells were, eventually, shut down, the Navy continues to deny that they bear responsibility for taking care of these veterans and their families. Children have died from rare forms of leukemia, but the Navy says they are not responsible. Marines and dependents have developed male breast cancer, but the Navy says, “not our problem”. While the Department of Veterans Affairs has begun to extend benefits for cancers that they view as “more likely than not” caused by drinking the toxic water, the Navy continues to wait for scientific certainty of causation.
The Navy expresses deep concern, and waits on science to answer with certainty the question of whether the toxic chemicals they admit contaminated the water at LeJeune are responsible for any adverse health conditions. As anyone who has followed science in public health should know, there will never be scientific certainty that any particular disease in any particular person is tied to any particular exposure. Toxic chemicals and human health tends to be about probabilities, not certainties. Science will never give the Navy certainty and so long as they wait, no veteran and no family members will ever receive their due from the Navy.
The Marine Corps has recently put out a glossy booklet regarding the history of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water and their response to the toxic contamination at the base. It may be their side of the story, but it is not the complete factual history of what happened to Camp Lejeune’s drinking water supply, nor does it accurately portray when the Marines became aware of these known hazards, how they responded to this information or the actual public health implications of these toxic chemicals on those exposed to them.
Relying on the advice of lawyers, hiding behind science that is slow and uncertain, and spending more energy on public relations than on helping Marines and their families, the leadership of the Marine Corps and Navy appears to have qualified their sense of service and obligation by concerns about possible legal liability. They are faithful only to the point where their attorneys tell them not to admit responsibility or accept liability.
The facts are these: The U.S. Marine Corps failed to act quickly or forcefully enough in the 1980s to close down water supply wells it knew were contaminated with toxic chemicals that were endangering the health and safety of its Marines and their families on Camp Lejeune.
I would like to understand why it took so long for the Marine Corps to respond because they have so far failed to provide an adequate explanation to the public, Congress or the Marines who served at Camp Lejeune and their families. I hope that U.S. Marine Corps Major General Payne can help address those issues today.
For its part, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a sister agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), produced a Public Health Assessment of human health hazards posed by Camp Lejeune’s drinking water supply in 1997 that was inadequate. I am glad to see that the agency has acknowledged that inadequacy and withdrew this publication last year. The 1997 health assessment evaluated the public health impact from exposures to TCE and PCE that infiltrated the drinking water supply at Camp Lejeune up through the 1980s, but it failed to investigate and evaluate the effect of benzene contamination at the base at that time. It is critically important that ATSDR carry out its slate of promised studies as quickly as possible. These studies will not provide the certainty regarding exposure and disease that some expect, but they should help identify the range of possible cancers and other conditions that could be produced from exposure to the polluted drinking water at Camp LeJeune.
We will also hear from the Department of Veterans Affairs today. I am pleased that the VA has begun to award some Camp Lejeune veterans for illnesses they developed that the VA has found were “more likely than not” caused by exposures to toxic chemical contamination in the drinking water at Camp Lejeune. Two of our witnesses are among the half dozen awards the VA has already granted. But that leaves dependents of Marine veterans who have been harmed by these exposures, like Mike Partain, to fall through the cracks.
I introduced a bill last year called the Janey Ensminger Act that would have the VA provide health care services to both veterans and their family members who have experienced adverse health effects as a result of exposure to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune. The bill is named for Janey Ensminger, a 9-year old girl who died from childhood Leukemia in 1985 after being exposed to the water at Camp Lejeune while in utero. Her father is 24-year Marine Corps veteran Jerry Ensminger who has been a tireless advocate for military families exposed to contamination at Camp Lejeune.
I believe the VA has begun to move in the right direction by awarding this small pool of veterans the compensation they need and deserve. I believe it is time that the Department of the Navy and U.S. Marine Corps stop fighting these efforts, and focus their energies on taking care of their own now and in the future. It is time that the leadership of the Navy and Marine Corp lived up to the motto of the Corps.
They could learn from the example of Jerry Ensminger, who has been faithful always to the memory of his daughter and to all the victims of the toxic drinking water at Camp Lejeune.
Witnesses
Panel I
2 - Mr. Mike Partain
Member, ATSDR Camp Lejeune Community Assistance Panel (CAP) breast cancer survivor born on Camp Lejeune breast cancer survivor born on Camp Lejeune
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5 - Dr. Michael Hargett
General Director, Anchimeric Associates Former co-owner of Grainger Laboratories Former co-owner of Grainger Laboratories
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4 - Mr. Jim Watters
Director, Graduate Medical Education, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center University of Michigan former Navy Lieutenant, retired Commander, Navy Reserv
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1 - Dr. Richard Clapp
Professor Emeritus Department of Environmental Health Boston University School of Public Health, environmental health policy consultant Department of Environmen
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3 - Mr. Peter Devereaux
Former Marine Corps Corporal Camp Lejeune veteran diagnosed with breast cancer Camp Lejeune veteran diagnosed with breast cancer
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Panel II
1 - Dr. Chris Portier
Director, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
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2 - Mr. Thomas J. Pamperin
Associate Deputy Under Secretary for Policy and Program Management, Veterans Benefits Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
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3 - Major General Eugene G. Payne
Assistant Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics (Facilities) Headquarters, United States Marine Corps Headquarters, United States Marine Corps
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