civilian exposure

This is the latest chemical issue for groundwater contamination springing up at military bases everywhere over the past 18 months.  If not already an issue at Camp Lejeune, it likely soon will be. Here’s what we found in recent articles that caught our eye:

The Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base site covers 125,000 acres in San Diego County, California. The base provides housing, training, logistical and administrative support for the Fleet Marine Force units. Past disposal practices have contaminated the groundwater and soil. In an initial investigation, the Marine Corps found nine areas of contamination. Waste generation operations at this site include maintenance and repair of vehicles (trucks, tanks, and aircraft); landfill operations; waste disposal areas, such as scrap yards; and fire fighting drill areas. The base contains wetlands, streams, and rivers which feed into the Pacific Ocean. This land is the only remaining undeveloped area between Los Angeles and San Diego.

The Naval Air Station Patuxent River in southern Maryland has continued to expand, contributing to rapid population growth in the surrounding area. There are approximately 17,500 military, civilian, contractors and nonappropriated fund personnel that work at the Naval Air Station on a normal day. But with expansion comes higher scrutiny on environmental impacts, and Patuxent River NAS has definitely made an impact.

The Honoring our PACT Act, which addresses burnpits exposures for thousands of veterans, also included several other provisions for a variety of toxic military contamination issues. Notably, the PACT Act included the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. The new legislation provides the ability for those impacted by Camp Lejeune contaminated drinking water to pursue claims and legal recourse previously unavailable to victims

The US Senate held another vote and successfully passed the PACT Act and the…

The US Senate is taking up the PACT Act and the Camp Lejeune Justice…

Have you heard about our new podcast? Catch up on all of our episodes here or on Anchor, with new episodes often.

Have you heard about our new podcast? Catch up on all of our episodes here or on Anchor, with new episodes often.

An opening exists for more inclusivity in the Burn Pits Bill H.R. 2372 which streamlines the process for obtaining VA benefits for burn pits and other toxic waste exposures. The bill is directed at those service members who were exposed to contaminates, especially in burn pits, where diseases appear years later because a latency period exists before disease detection.

As young men and teenagers, we were given a futile and dangerous task to ‘cleanup’ the nuclear fallout and debris of 43 atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. We attempted to gather the highest level of radioactive material and dump it into a nuclear blast crater. We dumped 110,000 cubic yards into a nuclear blast crater on Runit Island before covering it under a massive concrete containment dome.