Historical drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune: Regulatory risk assessor and personal perspectives

ABSTRACT

Historical concentrations of trichloroethylene (TCE) and other chemicals in drinking water at the U.S. Marine Corps Base at Camp Lejeune, NC, were sufficiently elevated to raise potential health concerns. The 1952–1984 mean TCE concentration (138 µg/L) exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) current maximum contaminant level (MCL) of TCE by 28-fold, with the corresponding dose (3.9E–03 mg/kg-day) exceeding all three candidate USEPA reference dose (RfD) values by 8- to 11-fold. Today, TCE hazard quotients (HQs) of 8–11 compel immediate action by USEPA. The mean dose also exceeds the supporting RfD values for toxic nephropathy and increased kidney weight, as well as the point of departure (POD) for toxic nephropathy. Furthermore, the estimated doses for 34% of the 9-month rolling averages exceed the POD for the highest RfD value for fetal heart defects. The incidences of nephropathy and fetal heart defects should be thoroughly evaluated among those who were exposed. Long-term follow-up will be required to assess potential health effects for the 500,000 to 1 million people who may have used the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune or were exposed in utero. This should serve as a cautionary tale for the thousands of Department of Defense sites across the USA (and other similarly contaminated sites elsewhere in the world) that are commonly contaminated with chemicals such as those at Camp Lejeune, where necessary sampling should be conducted to identify and mitigate any likely ongoing (or future) exposures of potential health concern.

KEYWORDS:

• Camp Lejeune
• trichloroethylene
• tetrachloroethylene
• vinyl chloride
• trans-1,2-dichloroethylene

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the staff and management of the Toxicology Division of the TCEQ as well as the rest of the agency for their support in developing this manuscript. The views and conclusions expressed herein are those of the study author and not necessarily those of the TCEQ.