To ALL Marines, Their Families,
Their Friends And Everyone, Who Appreciates Marines...
(Please pass the word about this; on and off the internet.)
Sen. Elizabeth Dole: Marines
Drank Toxin-contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
Military officials
should directly inform hundreds of thousands of Marine families and workers that they drank and washed in
toxin-contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Sen. Elizabeth Dole said Wednesday.
I was serving in Camp Lejeune in 1971.
Jack Cunningham
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 2:44 PM
Subject: Notify Marines of Toxic Exposure
AP July 19, 2007
Military officials should directly inform hundreds of thousands of Marine
families and workers that they drank and washed in toxin-contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Sen. Elizabeth Dole said Wednesday.
Dole, R-N.C., wants to force the secretary of the Navy to locate and notify
Marines and civilians who were exposed to the water up until the mid-1980s when the base shut down contaminated wells.
In a new twist, Marine officials raised the prospect Wednesday that the
same contaminants may endanger residents in the form of vapors that can be inhaled. The base is testing to see if vapors are
seeping through soil into homes and buildings from a groundwater plume.
Officials said the drinking water has been safe for many years. Previous
monitoring from the Environmental Protection Agency showed the underground plume was "no where near any of the buildings or residential
areas," according to Maj. Nat Fahy, the base spokesman.
However, the base and EPA recently began testing when health investigators
from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported that their new water model showed the plume had migrated
beneath homes and a school as far back as the 1960s. The model only went up to 1994 and contained some inherent uncertainties,
according to agency investigators, who are studying health effects from the past contaminated water. Some hazardous clean-up
work also has occurred since then.
"We're not saying there's a problem. We're saying there's a potential problem
and we're happy the Marines are going in there and sampling," said Frank Bove, a senior epidemiologist at the health agency.
"We want residents to know that this latest information on the groundwater
has no effect on their actual water supply which comes from an entirely different source," said Fahy.
Base officials hand-carried letters Wednesday to 900 homes in the base's
Tarawa Terrace neighborhood, disclosing the testing. A small portion of those homes may be affected, Fahy said. Ventilation
systems could be installed if danger is found, he said.
Dole's notification requirement was in an amendment she offered Wednesday
to a broad military money bill before the legislation was pulled from the floor in a showdown over Iraq. The larger bill may be back as soon as September.
Government health officials have estimated that as many as 1 million people
may have been exposed during three decades of water contamination going back to 1957, a situation examined in a recent Associated
Press investigation. The numbers include Marines in barracks and military families living on the sprawling Atlantic training
and deployment base, and civilians who worked there.
"We cannot correct a past mistake by pretending that this contamination
did not take place, and we cannot avoid the hard and unpleasant facts associated with this tragic situation," said Dole.
Her measure also aims to help answer questions about health effects by having
those exposed give government health investigators information on their illnesses.
Declining to comment specifically on Dole's proposal, spokeswoman Capt.
Amy Malugani said the Marines "continue to work closely" with Dole and other lawmakers on the issue.
The Corps is seeking "ways to improve and enhance our communications and
notification processes," she said. The base in 1985 told residents about "minute, trace amounts" of contamination, when some
levels had reached more than 200 times today's safe drinking water standards.
The groundwater contamination stemmed from industrial activity and hazardous
waste on the base and from a neighboring dry cleaner. Trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene , solvents used for degreasing
and dry cleaning, and other toxic chemicals were identified in water sampling that eventually led to the well closures.
Studies have linked the chemicals to leukemia, non-Hodgkin' s lymphoma,
birth defects and several other cancers.
Dole's amendment differs from an earlier measure that allows the military
to reach out through the media rather than directly notifying those exposed, and requires notification only after completion
of a government health study.
Dole's new measure would require notification to begin shortly after the
bill's passage.
"Enough is enough," Dole said. "Our Marines and their families must be notified
of what has happened."
Officials at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said they
received some 1,500 calls from citizens who didn't know of the contamination until they read about it in an Associated Press
investigative story and subsequent coverage of a congressional hearing in June. Many of those who called were former base
residents who wondered if their cancers and other illnesses were related to it.
.......................
The Vietnamese still Fight For Freedom in July of 2007.
Police
Violently Suppress Peasants’ Protest Viet Nam - July 19, 2007
From The People’s Democratic Party
http://johnibii.wordpress.com/2007/07/18/viet-nam-police-violently-suppress-peasants-protest/
At around 10PM., Sai Gon police began to violently suppress Vietnamese peasants
as they protest for their land rights. Thousands of police have surrounded the protesters, firing tear gas and spraying water
into the crowd. Hundreds of organizers and protesters are being arrested and taken to unknown locations.
Since June 22, thousands of peasants from Southern provinces including Tien
Giang, Binh Thuan, Dong Thap, Long An, Binh Duong, Ben Tre, Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh, Kien Giang have traveled to Sai Gon. They
are currently camped outside of the Congress House 2, at 194 Hoang Van Thu Street, Sai Gon in outraged protest over seizure
of their land by the government.
Due to corruption, unlawful and arbitrary land policy, thousands of Vietnamese
peasants have lost their land, homes and other properties. Many are living homeless, poor and hungry while corrupt government
officials continue to pocket peasants’ compensation to fund their lavish life style.
The authorities have failed to solve these contentious land issues properly.
Instead of engaging in direct and peaceful dialogue, the government has chosen to use brutal force to suppress the protesters.
The People’s Democratic Party strongly calls on the Ha Noi government to listen to its own people’s concerns.
We condemn the using force in order to suppress innocent people and hold the Ha Noi government accountable for committing
these acts of violence against its own people. We call on human rights organizations, government officials of the free world
and religious leaders to raise your voices to support the struggle of the Vietnamese peasants for the right to land and property.
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contest. It was adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives the next year. Read the American Creed at:
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