The water contamination at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, came from two main sources: industrial solvents used on and near the base, and underground fuel leaks. The contamination began in the early 1950s and continued for roughly three decades before the most polluted wells were shut down in 1985. During that time, up to a million people may have been exposed to drinking water laced with chemicals at concentrations hundreds of times above safe limits.
Two Water Systems, Two Sources of Contamination
Camp Lejeune’s drinking water was supplied by several treatment plants, and the contamination affected them differently. The two most heavily impacted systems were Hadnot Point and Tarawa Terrace, each with its own distinct source of pollution.
The Hadnot Point water system served the main industrial and working areas of the base. It was contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE), and refined petroleum products. TCE is a powerful degreasing solvent widely used in the mid-20th century to clean metal parts and equipment. On a military base with vehicle maintenance shops, aircraft facilities, and industrial operations, TCE was used routinely. Leaking underground storage tanks added fuel-related chemicals like benzene to the mix. The peak TCE concentration recorded in the Hadnot Point system reached 1,400 micrograms per liter, which was 280 times the EPA’s current maximum contaminant level of 5 micrograms per liter.
The Tarawa Terrace water system served family housing, where Marines lived with their spouses and children. Its primary contaminant was PCE, a solvent used in dry cleaning. The source was an off-base business called ABC One-Hour Cleaners, which contaminated the groundwater through spills and improper disposal of spent solvent over many years. That PCE seeped into the aquifer feeding the base’s supply wells. The peak PCE level in the Tarawa Terrace system hit 215 micrograms per liter, 43 times the safe limit.
How the Chemicals Entered the Groundwater
Both TCE and PCE are dense, nonaqueous liquids. When spilled or dumped on the ground, they don’t stay on the surface. They sink through soil and into underground water supplies, where they can persist for decades. At Camp Lejeune, decades of routine industrial use, combined with inadequate disposal practices common to that era, allowed these solvents to accumulate in the aquifer that fed the base’s drinking water wells.
On the Hadnot Point side, the contamination came from multiple points across the base: maintenance yards, industrial areas, and underground storage tanks that leaked fuel products into the ground. The Tarawa Terrace contamination was more concentrated in origin, traceable primarily to the dry cleaning operation just outside the base perimeter. Once PCE entered the soil there, groundwater flow carried it directly toward the wells supplying drinking water to family housing.
These chemicals also break down in groundwater over time, but not into harmless substances. TCE and PCE can degrade into vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen. So residents were potentially exposed not just to the original solvents but to their toxic breakdown products as well.
A Third Housing Area Was Also Affected
A third water system, Holcomb Boulevard, served another family housing area on the base. It had its own treatment plant that came online in June 1972, and under normal conditions its water was largely uncontaminated. The problem was that the Holcomb Boulevard and Hadnot Point water distribution systems were periodically connected. During dry spring and summer months, when demand was high, contaminated water from the Hadnot Point system flowed into the Holcomb Boulevard network.
Before June 1972, Holcomb Boulevard housing received its water entirely from the Hadnot Point system, meaning those families drank contaminated water continuously. After 1972, the exposure became intermittent but still significant, with TCE concentrations reaching 66 micrograms per liter during periods of interconnection. One notable episode occurred over eight days in late January and early February 1985, when the Holcomb Boulevard plant was out of service and the entire housing area received Hadnot Point water.
How Long the Contamination Lasted
The contamination timeline is staggering. Federal investigators determined that the drinking water at Camp Lejeune became polluted as early as the 1950s. For the Tarawa Terrace system specifically, water modeling by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) showed that families received PCE-contaminated water above safe levels from November 1957 through February 1987, a span of nearly 30 years.
The most contaminated wells in the Hadnot Point system were shut down in 1985 after testing finally revealed the extent of the problem. But for the decades before that, no one was testing for these chemicals in drinking water. Federal drinking water standards for TCE didn’t take effect until 1989, and standards for PCE followed in 1992. During the peak contamination years, there were simply no regulatory requirements to look for these solvents in water supplies. The EPA’s goal level for both chemicals in drinking water is actually zero, reflecting the agency’s position that no amount is considered safe. The enforceable limit of 5 micrograms per liter represents the lowest level that water systems can feasibly achieve with available treatment technology.
Who Was Exposed
Camp Lejeune is one of the largest Marine Corps installations in the country, and personnel rotated through regularly. One federal health study tracked over 154,000 Marines, Navy personnel, and civilian workers who were stationed at or worked at the base between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s alone. When you factor in the full contamination period stretching back to the 1950s, and include family members living in base housing, the total number of people who drank, bathed in, and cooked with contaminated water is far larger.
The exposed population is unusually difficult to pin down because military families typically lived on base for only two to three years before being reassigned. This means the contamination touched a vast, geographically scattered group of people rather than a single stable community. Many didn’t learn they had been exposed until decades after they left the base, when federal investigations and media coverage brought the contamination to public attention.
Why It Went Undetected for So Long
Several factors allowed the contamination to persist for decades. The chemicals involved are colorless and, at the concentrations present, largely undetectable by taste or smell in treated water. Federal regulations requiring water systems to test for volatile organic compounds didn’t exist during most of the contamination period. And the military’s own internal awareness of potential problems didn’t translate into swift action. Base records show that concerns about water quality surfaced in the early 1980s, but the most contaminated wells weren’t closed until 1985, and the Tarawa Terrace system continued delivering water above safe PCE levels until 1987.
The combination of lax disposal practices typical of the era, the absence of regulatory oversight for these specific chemicals, and the slow institutional response created one of the largest drinking water contamination events in American history.