Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 12:49:36 -0400
From: Tara Thornton <Tara@...>
Subject: Camp Lejeune- from today's Greenwire

*Marine Corps must widen research on N.C. base contamination, panel
says *
The government should evaluate the health of everyone who lived or
worked at the Marine Corps base in Camp Lejeune, N.C., from 1968 to
1985
due to the threat of water contamination, according to an _Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry report_
<http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/lejeune/panel_report.html> released
last
week.

An estimated 16,500 children born at Camp Lejeune between 1968 and
1985
may have consumed water contaminated with compounds that have been
linked to birth defects and childhood cancers, the Marine Corps has
said. In total, about 50,000 people lived in housing at the base from
1968 to 1985. Some critics have said the contamination may have begun
in
the 1950s; in which case, activists have said the number of possible
affected people could be closer to 200,000.

Camp Lejeune's base wells were contaminated by tetrachloroethylene
(PCE)
and trichloroethylene (TCE). Authorities, who believe some of the
contaminants came from a dry cleaning business that still operates,
discovered the problem in the early 1980s but did not cap the wells
until several years later. Testing of water samples has found 1,400
parts per billion of TCE, about 280 times the levels the U.S. EPA
calls
safe. But federal TCE standards did not exist when the Marine Corps
first discovered the problem (_/Greenwire/_
Jan. 28, 2004).

The report called on the Marine Corps to notify all people who may
have
been exposed to the contaminated water. "Community involvement must
take
place with full recognition of the uniqueness of the community of
exposed individuals who had lived at Camp Lejeune," the report
stated.
"In contrast with many other places where toxic contamination of the
environment has been a concern, the population at Camp Lejeune is
relatively transient" (Chris Mazzolini, _Jacksonvile [N.C.]/ Daily

_____________________

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 13:47:13 EDT
From: dcatbird37@...
Subject: Fwd: Camp Lejeune- from today's Greenwire

Please read the attached.

It's good to see the DODs deep pockets are in place there in
Lejeune,
where there alot of folks concerned with contamination and disease.
We have a solvent plume here in South Weymouth amongst the many
remaining Superfund sites on the arir station, but Abington and
Rockland voters were
scared into believing the Navy was going to auction the property off
to
the
highest bidder, and they weren't offered up any other possible
scenarios like
Public Benefit Conveyance, as the DOD wants to pass this and every
other
contaminated base "hot potato" to very willing developers.

It's a tragic moral crime, but it's all legal I'm sure.
My local representatives didn't want to hear it, but they're not
taking
calls from ladies in Dallas who grew up next to the base. The elderly
mother
and all three daughters have thyroid conditions, and one has MS.
Health
care
skyrockets and the powers that be turn a blind eye, or laud "sound
science" that
fails to keep up with discoveries.

I'm sure this gridlocking development will possibly stop a
couple
cul-de-sacs from being built in Norwell or Duxbury, but the few of us
here, who have
paid any attention to the Environmental Remediation at the base, and
who are
now being sacrificed to become the next delegated "Environmental
Justice"
communities of Urban Sprawl in the State, can't believe that money
and
politics is
winning such a clear cut victory over the true best interests of our
townspeople, or the thousands of planned for new residents that will
be
buying those
2,855 homes.

It's tragic we've been steamrolled over and not many of us are
even
aware
it happened.