If you’ve heard the name Camp Lejeune, it probably hasn’t been in a happy context. The devastating environmental disaster has left a lasting impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. For decades, a military base in North Carolina provided contaminated water to its residents, leading to a wide range of serious health problems. Despite the severity of the issue, it took years for the truth to come to light. A new law passed finally opened the door for victims to seek compensation, but the process has been slow and frustrating, leaving many wondering if they will ever receive the answers and relief they deserve.
Contaminated Waters
Camp Lejeune is a U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp outside of Jacksonville, North Carolina. The military base is on the Atlantic Coast, about 244 square miles in area and with a current population of about 170,000. It’s also the site of what some would describe as the worst water contamination incident in the country.
From about 1953 and 1987, the level of contaminants in “finished water” (tap water in homes, schools, hospitals, and other buildings) reached 280 times what is today deemed safe by the environmental Protection Agency. There were about 70 different contaminants in that water. It is a well-documented fact that Camp Lejeune was responsible for providing this water to the base. The Department of the Navy, through its component, the United States Marine Corps, owned, operated, and managed Camp Lejeune during the relevant period. The Department of the Navy was responsible for the water supply systems at Camp Lejeune, which provided contaminated water to service members, civilian employees, and their families. Estimates for the number of people that could have been exposed to the water are way higher than the city’s current population — as many as one million.
The consequences of those contaminants are varied and devastating. Some examples of disease and other conditions caused by those contaminants include various cancers (lung, breast, esophageal, kidney, bladder, leukemia, lymphoma, to name a few), Parkinson’s, infertility, and miscarriages. A 2017 report from the CDC assessing evidence from the Camp Lejeune incident confirms that these and other conditions have been casually linked to the contaminants found there.
Evidence Concealed for Decades
If you’re thinking that 2017 is a long time after the fact to confirm the extent of a public health crisis, well, that’s part of the problem. They claim that the U.S. government mishandled the issue to such an extent that it put affected people and scientists alike in the dark for decades. The claim that the government’s failure to respond to the contamination, ignoring repeated test results that indicated contamination, and withholding information from the governments own scientist created a crisis that could have been avoided or at least ameliorated. They claim that the government hindered the ability of a proper investigation to be done at the time, and so only water modeling done retroactively was able to calculate the levels of contamination at the time.
The problem with such a delay in getting the truth was that, for those affected, they were left clueless and helpless. The plaintiffs claim those who were affected were misled for all this time. The U.S. government instead wanted people to believe the injuries and deaths were not connected to the Camp Lejeune water. Even after the connection was “discovered” and admitted, they were still told that they were barred from any legal recourse for it. More and more evidence continued to come out linking the injuries with the camp water, but it would still be another five years before any sort of formal recourse would be effectuated to make those affected whole.
The Camp Lejeune Justice Act
In 2022, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA) was signed into law. It allowed the people injured or killed by the contaminated water at the base to finally file administrative claims for compensation. By passing the act and authorizing such lawsuits, the federal government waived the sovereign immunity that would normally keep people from taking it to court over an incident like Camp Lejeune.
In theory, the threshold for proving a claim under the CLJA was not particularly difficult. For one thing, the Act didn’t require claimants to prove negligence or fault, which is often required in a products liability case. In other words, they didn’t have to show that the U.S. had a duty to them or that such duty was breached.
Rather, the law treated the liability of the government regarding the water as strict liability. It only required claimants to show that they suffered harm from the water and a sufficient causal connection between the harm that came to them and the water. And even the causation element was relatively easy to satisfy compared to most other tort claims of a similar nature. Claimants only had to show that it was at least as likely as not that their harms were connected to the contaminants – i.e., just that there was a 50% likelihood.
Claims Fall on Deaf Ears
This may seem like a major improvement on the plight of those affected, but the way it played out hasn’t been nearly as satisfying. As of now, about 385,000 Camp LeJeune victims filed administrative claims with the Department of the Navy under the act. But the vast majority of these claims have still not received a response. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Camp Lejeune Claims Unit at the U.S. Navy, a mere 154 claims have been resolved.
Hundreds of thousands of claimants from the camp, finding themselves ignored, took the matter to the judiciary. They sued the federal government in federal court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. They asked the court to enter judgment against the United States under the CLJA and award them damages including compensation for personal injuries or death, along with all related costs and damages.
Lawsuits Without an End in Sight
About 1,900 such lawsuits are already pending, but these also seem to be going nowhere. A panel of four federal judges are overseeing the trial and making the major rulings in the case. The plaintiffs were asking for a jury trial, but earlier this year, the four judges found that the CLJA did not provide for jury trials. Thus, the plaintiffs were limited to trials by judges. This was a big impediment to the victory of plaintiffs, since juries were likely to be sympathetic to military families who have suffered tragic consequences merely for trusting that the water provided on base was safe. The trials still haven’t been given a start date, and based on recent orders from the court, they wouldn’t start until at least a year from now.
And on August 10, the window for people to make their claims from Camp Lejeune closed. As it stands, the gigantic mass tort case against the U.S. government remains mostly unresolved. Most victims are left wondering if or when they’ll get an answer. Victims have argued that the government’s feet-dragging on this crisis doesn’t inspire much faith in either government agencies or the judiciary.
Related Resources:
- Legal Responsibility for Toxic Exposure (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
- 'Forever Chemicals' Attract Growing Legal Challenges (FindLaw's Courtside)
- Toxic Chemicals and Materials (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
