Former Camp Lejeune Resident Sues U.S. Government Over Toxic Water

By: Jim Niedelman | WNCT-On Your Side
Published: July 07, 2009

A new lawsuit in a long line of cases blames the United States government for the effects of tainted water at Camp Lejeune.

Lawyers for 47-year-old Laura Jones brought the case to U.S. District Court in Raleigh.

Jones lived on Camp Lejeune in the early 1980s.

The suit blames toxic drinking water for giving her cancer.

Lawyers for Laura Jones say their client drank the water on Camp Lejeune from 1980 to 1983 and ended getting sick with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma 20 years later.

She's one of perhaps a million people health officials say could have been exposed to contaminated water on the base.

"These people are waiting for answers. They want to know why for the first time in five generations, does everybody in their family have cancer," said the plaintiff’s lawyer Joseph Anderson.

A central part of the plaintiff's case will be military documents that outline the navy's policy for maintaining a safe water supply.

The lawsuit claims that police was recklessly ignored as amounts of toxins like tetrachloretyhylene, trichloroethylene and benzyne among others increased to dangerous levels.

Lawyers say it's time for the government to start paying for it.

"Hopefully, with that accountability, they would think twice before letting this happen again," said the plaintiff’s lawyer Michael Pangia.

"You have veterans and their family members out here right now that have been exposed to these toxins while they were at Camp Lejeune who are literally in financial ruin because of their illnesses that they've contracted because of their exposure," said retired marine Jerry Ensminger.

Jerry Ensminger's been an outspoken critic of the water problems on Camp Lejeune for years.

He blames it for causing the leukemia that killed his daughter.

"When are we gonna have enough because I've had enough," Ensminger said.

The courts are slowly finding that out as cases mount one by one.

Laura Jones currently lives in Iowa.

Her lawyers say she has fibryomyalgia as well as immune disorders and was too sick to be in Raleigh.