|
|
| |
|
Best veiw with
Firefox 3
|
|
|
Tainted Tapwater
Water contaminated with toxins harsh enough to kill many family members
was ignored for years by government officials where military people
lived, drank, and washed in water dirty enough to be called toxic soup.
 |
Lejeune water woes probed
13 June 2007 - By KIMBERLY HEFLING - fayobserver.com
WASHINGTON — Thousands of Marine families who lived at Camp Lejeune in
North Carolina over three decades drank and bathed in water
contaminated with toxins as much as 40 times over today’s safety
standard.
The government disclosed results Tuesday from a new study the same day
lawmakers listened to emotional testimony from families about cancers
and other illnesses they blame on tainted tapwater at the sprawling
base.
Jerry Ensminger of White Lake, N.C., lost his 9-year-old daughter,
Janey, to leukemia. He was a Marine for 24 years. He said toward the
end of his daughter’s life, she endured painful treatments.
“I held her and she screamed in my ear, ‘Daddy, don’t let them hurt
me,’” he said. He said he reassured her: “They’re trying to help you.”
Marine Corps officials said that Camp Lejeune provided water
consistent with industry practices of the time, and that its Marines’
health and safety are of primary concern. |
|
|
Comment: The expected paramoralism
response from an anonymous official. It was ok to drink poison back
then? And now you actually give a hoot?
As many as 1 million people were exposed to contaminated water at
Camp Lejeune, according to a document from a federal health agency
disclosed at Tuesday’s congressional hearing. That figure is
significantly higher than previous estimates. The document estimated
the number of residents exposed to such chemicals while living at each
of nine U.S. military sites, including Camp Lejeune.
The House Energy and Commerce panel described the sickened Marines as
“poisoned patriots.”
The chairman of the committee, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said he
will examine handling of the water investigation in 2005 by the
Environmental Protection Agency’s criminal division. An EPA
investigator, Tyler Amon, acknowledged Tuesday that officials had
considered accusing some civilian Navy employees of obstruction of
justice. |
|
|
Comment: They always tell you they
consider this and consider that as though they mean it, when most of
it is double speak and stalling.
Amon, who testified despite objections from the Bush administration,
said some employees interviewed during the criminal investigation
appeared coached and were not forthcoming with details. |
|
|
Comment: Why would the Bush
administration object to justice? Oh, I forgot, they are a bunch of
criminals who are protecting their harems.
Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, the panel’s ranking Republican, said he
was puzzled criminal charges weren’t pursued. |
|
|
Comment: Puzzled once and puzzled twice,
just go back to sleep.
“We have many people who have died,” Whitfield said.
Camp Lejeune’s water was polluted from 1957 until 1987 by TCE, a
degreasing solvent, and PCE, a dry-cleaning agent. The government
describes them as probable carcinogens. The water was believed
contaminated by a dry cleaner adjacent to Camp Lejeune and by
industrial activities on the base.
A federal health organization, the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry, said Tuesday that its new modeling and analysis of
Camp Lejeune’s Tarawa Terrace drinking water system during the
affected years found levels of PCE as high as 200 parts per
billion, compared to 5 parts per billion that federal regulators
set in 1992 as the maximum allowable level.
Of the 1 million people possibly affected, roughly 75,000 of them
lived during those three decades in the Tarawa Terrace neighborhood.
The newly released study is part of the health agency’s ongoing
investigation into whether exposure to the solvents caused birth
defects and leukemia in babies. It also launched a Web site,
www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites /lejeune, for people to learn the levels of
contamination that came from their faucets at different times.
At least 850 former residents of the base have filed administrative
claims, seeking nearly $4 billion, for exposure to the industrial
solvents.
The Navy Judge Advocate General’s office promised lawmakers it will
“thoroughly analyze each and every claim utilizing the best scientific
research available.” |
|
|
Comment: Somehow I have a feeling that
the best scientific research available is altered and manipulated data
where the source information can be hidden and these families will
never see a dime. Time will tell. |
|
|
The
The
Labors in the Spirits of
Science
Living on the Lost Planet 
