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Marines drank tainted water for 30 years: CDC

Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:23PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As many as 75,000 people may have drunk water contaminated by dry cleaning fluid at the U.S. Marine base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

The contamination lasted for 30 years until the affected wells were closed. Marines and their families drank the contaminated water during base assignments of an average of 2 years, the CDC said.

The water was polluted with tetrachloroethylene, also known as PCE, a dry cleaning solvent that has been linked with cancer, the CDC said.

"The Department of Health and Human Services has determined that PCE may be a carcinogen," the CDC said in a statement.

"But the effects of consumers' exposure to drinking water contaminated with PCE are not known. Some health studies have found adverse effects in occupational settings. However, exposure to PCE alone typically does not mean a person will experience adverse health effects," the CDC said.

The affected area is the Tarawa Terrace family housing area, and the contamination lasted from November 1957 through February 1987, the agency said. An off-base dry cleaners leaked the fluid into a septic system near the housing area's well.

"The maximum concentration of PCE in Tarawa Terrace drinking water was estimated to be about 200 micrograms per liter. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's EPA maximum contaminant level (was) 5 micrograms per liter during the period," the CDC said.

High levels of lead were found in tap water at Camp Lejeune in 1994, and pesticides were found in the soil. Other potentially harmful chemicals have been found in the water of other housing areas on the camp, as well, according to previous reports published by the CDC.

Government toxicology experts have been studying the health of babies born there from 1968 to 1985.

PCE is a volatile organic compound. Some compounds in this class have been linked with birth defects such as cleft palate or spina bifida, and childhood cancers. The CDC encouraged anyone who may have been affected to get regular health checks.

Last year, a team at Columbia University in New York found some evidence to suggest that PCE may be linked with schizophrenia.

Demoncase wrote:Cue major payouts methinks.....

Under the Federal Tort Claims Act and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 1950, active-duty military personnel are barred from suing the U.S. government for injuries "incident to service," even if gross negligence was the cause.

The courts have broadly interpreted that prohibition, called the Feres Doctrine, to apply to virtually any kind of injury related to military service, even if the injury occurred off the job or wasn't caused by military personnel.

A court, for instance, tossed out a lawsuit by the widow of a military policeman who was off-duty and off-base when he was killed by a driver who had been drinking at a military club. The court cited the Feres Doctrine.

The doctrine was named for the 1950 high court decision in Feres v. United States in which a widow of a military man alleged that her husband's death in a barracks fire was due to government negligence. The court unanimously ruled that the woman had no right to sue under the federal tort law.

kman wrote: I am by no means a lawyer, but I thought I had read something about how members of the military here cannot sue the government. A little googling turned this up: