“Don’t Drink the Water”: The Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Incident

Abstract

From 1953 until 1987, an estimated one million Marines and their families at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were exposed to drinking water contaminated with several volatile organic compounds (VOCs) known to cause cancer and other serious health conditions.1 From the time of detection in 1980 until a Congressional mandate in 2007, the Marine Corps made little to no effort to notify the affected veterans and their families of the potential for health problems, and failed to fully disclose the true extent of the contamination.