June 2009

U.S. Water News Online

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal report says contaminated drinking water at a North Carolina Marine Corps base can't definitively be linked to health problems among people who lived there over a three-decade span.

The recently-released report by the National Research Council says there is evidence people who lived and worked at Camp Lejeune in eastern North Carolina between the 1950s and 1985 were exposed to the industrial solvents tricholorethylene (TCE) or perchloroethylene (PCE) through tainted well water.

But the 341-page report says there are severe scientific barriers to connecting contaminants to any birth defects, cancer and many other ailments suffered by people who lived and worked on base.

The study reviewed past reports on the base's water and health issues there.

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