By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, March 27, 2010

A government decision to give disability benefits to a former Marine sickened by toxins at Camp Lejeune, N.C., could have far-reaching effects for thousands of other families who lived and worked at the military base over the years.

Paul Buckley, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma four years ago, received a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this month stating that “all reasonable doubt has been resolved in your favor.” Buckley’s incurable bone marrow cancer “was directly related to military service,” the letter continued.

“This is not the type of cancer you get from smoking or eating French fries,” said Buckley, 46, who now lives in Hanover, Mass. “I was too young to get this illness and I didn’t have any of the risk factors.”

But in the 1980s, Buckley was assigned to Camp Lejeune, where scientists found the presence of the degreaser trichloroethylene, or TCE, the dry-cleaning solvent tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, and the carcinogen benzene in the drinking water.

His doctors believe exposure to those chemicals was the likely cause of his cancer ? a claim the U.S. government repeatedly denied until he received his letter from the VA on March 8.

For Buckley, the sudden reversal means that he can start collecting VA benefits, which will extend to his wife when he dies.

The VA’s ruling could have much broader ramifications: By some estimates, up to 1 million people lived or worked at the base between 1957 and 1987.

“I think this has enormous national implications and is truly a breakthrough,” said U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass. “The government has acknowledged, at long last, that there is clearly a causal relationship between the contaminated water and the cancer that afflicts Mr. Buckley.”

The letter, Delahunt said, will establish a precedent.

“It’s highly significant,” for the thousands of others, according to Joseph Anderson, a Winston-Salem, N.C., lawyer representing a woman who lived at Camp Lejeune in the 1980s and suffers from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His client, Laura Jones, recently won a small battle in federal court when a judge ruled that her case against the Navy could go forward. The Navy had argued that the statute of limitations had expired.

“[The VA decision] can help us as we fight on behalf of families,” said Anderson, adding his office receives an average of 30 calls a day from military and civilians and families who once were stationed at Camp Lejeune.

Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Katie Roberts declined to address the department’s letter to Buckley or the reason for the reversal.

While not addressing the Camp Lejeune case specifically, Roberts stated that generally, the VA is working with the Defense Department on a number of exposure-related concerns, and the two departments have created a data-sharing agreement to let researchers cross-reference data and information.

She declined to speculate on whether the department’s decision would affect other veterans’ claims for benefits.

There are 2,044 pending legal claims by people who lived and worked at the Marine base, the Navy said Friday. In 2007, Stars and Stripes reported there were 853 claims pending.

For years, Marines have blamed their and their families’ ailments on the contaminated tap water.

The presence of TCE and PCE in the camp’s water sources was discovered in 1982. Yet some of the wells that supplied the water were not shut down until 1985. An environmental engineering company found benzene in a well near the base’s Hadnot Point Fuel Farm at levels of 380 parts per billion when water was sampled in July 1984; the EPA has established that levels more than 5 parts per billion in water is dangerous to human health.

As the health effects continue to be examined, the Marine Corps is trying to reach between 500,000 to 1 million people who lived and worked on the base during the three decades, according to Capt. Brian Block, a Corps spokesman. The Corps’ search for former base residents was spurred, in part, by health officials’ needs to conduct tests to determine whether exposure to the contaminated drinking water is causing ailments.

To date, 160,000 people have registered, which can be done online at https://clnr.hqi.usmc.mil/clwater or by calling (877) 261-9782.

Buckley hopes the letter he received will lead to help for more Marines and their families who lived at the base.

“I’m hoping the VA will loosen up, and maybe, just maybe, this means I can help a million people or so,” he said. “Giving hope to somebody is a wonderful thing.”

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By Barbara Barrett | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Families of Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., three decades ago might receive a sliver of military-sponsored health care to address diseases caused by drinking and bathing in toxic water.

Legislation passed by a key Senate committee Thursday would require the Department of Defense to offer health care to spouses, children and other family members who were exposed to contaminated water at the base in the 1970s and ’80s.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., opposed the bill, saying it takes the wrong approach and will unfairly give false hope to thousands of struggling families.

He and U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., have co-sponsored a competing bill that makes the Veterans Affairs department responsible for health care. They say the VA would do a better job.

Their bill, offered Thursday as an amendment, failed along partisan lines in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, with Democrats on the committee unanimously opposed. (Burr is the committee’s top Republican. Hagan does not sit on the committee.)

Instead, the committee approved legislation that requires the military’s health care program, called Tricare, to treat those diseases directly linked to the exposure.

It’s unclear yet how much that would cost, and how the military would decide exactly which ailments to cover. Studies have yet to provide direct links between the toxins and a variety of cancers and other ailments among Camp Lejeune’s former inhabitants.

Burr and Hagan argue that the Department of Defense can’t be trusted to take care of Marines and family members to whom it has spent decades denying a connection.

“I can’t in good conscience agree to give these brave men and women a false hope that they’ll get health care,” Burr said. “Do you really believe the Department of Defense will accept responsibility for this health care when it still doesn’t accept responsibility for the contamination?”

He pointed out that the U.S. Department of Navy has been ordered by Congress to pay for a scientific study on the potential link between exposure and disease, but that hasn’t happened.

And he threatened to exercise what power he could until his amendment is passed.

“There will not be a Navy nominee considered on the Senate floor until this is resolved,” Burr said.

Thousands of Marines and their family members living at Camp Lejeune were exposed to tap water contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), dichloroethylene (DCE), benzene and vinyl chloride.

Military veterans already are entitled to health care through the VA system. At issue is where family members also might receive care.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki warned the Burr/Hagan bill could apply to half a million military dependents and cost the VA $4.16 billion over 10 years.

Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, who sponsored Thursday’s legislation, said he agreed with Burr that families exposed to contaminated water should receive health care from the federal government.

But he and other Democrats on the committee argue that the Department of Defense has to be held responsible for problems it created, instead of being allowed to foist health care coverage onto the Veterans Affairs Department, which already struggles with funding.

That view is endorsed by several major veterans groups.

“Family members would be better served under the Department of Defense health care program,” Akaka said.

He argued that the issue should be handled on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and recommended that he and Burr meet with that committee’s leadership, Sens. John McCain and Carl Levin, to discuss Camp Lejeune.

His bill, unlike Burr’s, also addresses contamination at another base, Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan. There, families were exposed to air-borne and water-borne toxins from an incinerator.

Burr, meanwhile, vowed to fight on in his cause for Lejeune veterans.

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