Sunday, May 31, 2009

Camp Lejeune Vets Suffer From Drinking Water Contamination

A sign at Camp Lejeune, N.C., warns about treatment of the underground plume
of TCE, or trichloroethylene, on the base.


From St. Petersburg Times:

The last years of Marine Corps veteran Ian Colin MacPherson's life were spent fending off one puzzling ailment after another.

Rashes. Headaches. Vertigo. Nausea. And finally, the abnormally aggressive prostate cancer that killed the Riverview man at age 46 in 2004.

MacPherson always figured he must have been poisoned. But by whom?

His widow, Jody MacPherson, believes she found the culprit last year: MacPherson's beloved Marine Corps.

"They killed him," she said.

Camp Lejeune, a sprawling Marine base on the North Carolina seaboard, is the site of what some scientists call the worst public drinking-water contamination in the nation's history. Its water wells were tainted with cancer-causing industrial compounds for 30 years, ending in 1987.

Read more ....

My Comment: I must confess that this is the first time I have heard of this story. It deserves more coverage and commentary.

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