Oct 24: What Happened at Camp Lejeune?
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune was established in 1941 and still exists today. It is a roughly 250-mile-long military training base in Jacksonville, North Carolina. There are 14 miles of beaches, which make it ideal to train marines on both land and water. Millions of marines have trained at Camp Lejeune throughout the years and currently the population of the camp is around 140,000. Between 1957 and 1987, Marines and their families who lived at Camp Lejeune drank contaminated water that contained 250 to 3,500 times the toxin levels allowed by water safety standards. It was discovered in 1982 that the water had been contaminated by an off-base dry cleaners which utilized improper waste disposal practices. Most of the contaminants had been dumped into storm drains for disposal and then filtered back into the main water supply by accident. The...