WASHINGTON -- A congressional oversight committee has begun looking into new details about historic water contamination at Camp Lejeune.
Investigators in the House Science and Technology Committee have requested hundreds of documents from the state of North Carolina that include details about underground storage tanks buried across the Marine base in past decades. The tanks contained fuel, tricholorethylene (TCE) and other chemicals.
Some of the storage tanks leaked into the groundwater, including some buried about 300 feet from a drinking well. The well was found in 1984 to be contaminated with benzene, a fuel component and a human carcinogen. It was closed in December 1984.
McClatchy has obtained the state of North Carolina documents and reported Friday that federal scientists have learned of the leaking fuel tanks near the historic well as they, too, work to understand the health effects of decades of contamination across the Marine base.
The tanks were buried beneath a former refueling station known as Building 1115; they were removed in 1993.
"That water was stunningly contaminated," said U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, chairman of the oversight panel on the science and technology committee. "It was stunningly toxic, and the fact that Marines and their families drank that water for 30 years is inexcusable."
Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, said his committee plans new hearings on the issue as it gathers more facts about what the U.S. Department of the Navy, which oversees the Marine Corps, might have known about the contamination.
Meanwhile, federal scientists at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry have been combing documents to develop new water modeling studies for contamination at Lejeune between the mid-1950s and mid-1980s.
Benzene discovery noted
"We must get to the bottom of this," said Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "This second site filled with cancer-causing benzene could have a tremendous effect on the outcome of the studies."
Marine spokesman Capt. Brian Block stressed that Camp Lejeune's current water system meets all standards for drinking water. The military publishes annual water quality reports on the Internet, he said, and sends the reports to base residents.
"The drinking water at Camp Lejeune is safe to drink and is tested more frequently than required by law," Block said.
Cleanup efforts at Camp Lejeune are in progress. Block said the base has won several Department of Defense honors for its cleanup work.
Sen. Richard Burr of Winston-Salem, the top Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said, "Given what's at stake here, I fully expect the Navy to fulfill their duty to the affected Marines, sailors and their families."
