Camp Lejeune is a 246-square-mile Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, North Carolina, in Onslow County. The water contamination that made it infamous occurred in two on-base water treatment systems, Hadnot Point and Tarawa Terrace, which supplied drinking water to military housing, workplaces, and a base hospital from the early 1950s through 1985.
The Base and Its Water Systems
Camp Lejeune sits along the coast of southeastern North Carolina, encompassing 156,000 acres with 18 kilometers of beach. Parts of the base fall within Jacksonville’s city limits, while other sections are in unincorporated Onslow County. The base has operated since the early 1940s and remains one of the largest Marine Corps installations in the country.
Three water treatment plants served different sections of the base. The Hadnot Point plant opened in 1942 and was the oldest, supplying water to barracks, workplaces, the base hospital, and an industrial area. The Tarawa Terrace plant began delivering water in 1952 or 1953, serving a family housing community for non-commissioned officers located in the southern part of the base. The Holcomb Boulevard plant came online in June 1972 and served a third residential area. A waterway called Northeast Creek separated the Tarawa Terrace housing area from the Hadnot Point and Holcomb Boulevard areas on the other side of the base.
These weren’t entirely independent systems. The Hadnot Point plant periodically supplemented the Holcomb Boulevard system during summer months when demand was high, and it temporarily supplied Holcomb Boulevard’s full water supply during a two-week emergency in 1985. That crossover matters because it means contamination from one system could reach residents connected to another.
What Contaminated the Water
The two main systems had different contamination sources. At Tarawa Terrace, the problem came from off base. A small dry-cleaning business called ABC One-Hour Cleaners, located at 2127 Lejeune Boulevard in Jacksonville’s commercial district, operated from 1964 to 2005. The shop used a common dry-cleaning solvent called perchloroethylene (PCE) and improperly released it into the soil and groundwater through its septic system. That contamination migrated underground into the wells feeding the Tarawa Terrace water plant. The maximum PCE level found in Tarawa Terrace drinking water reached 215 parts per billion.
At Hadnot Point, the contamination came from multiple on-base sources and involved multiple chemicals. The most significant was trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial degreasing solvent. TCE levels in the Hadnot Point system peaked at 1,400 parts per billion, which is 280 times higher than the current EPA safety limit of 5 parts per billion. The Hadnot Point plant had been running since 1942, and no firm estimate exists for when contamination first entered the system.
How Long the Contamination Lasted
Drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune began in the early 1950s. The Marine Corps discovered the problem in the early 1980s, and the most contaminated wells were shut down in 1985. Federal analysis later confirmed that Tarawa Terrace residents received PCE-contaminated water above EPA safety limits from November 1957 through February 1987, when the Tarawa Terrace plant was permanently closed.
That means service members, civilian workers, and their families may have been drinking, cooking with, and bathing in contaminated water for roughly 30 years before the worst sources were eliminated. Today, the Holcomb Boulevard plant services both the Holcomb Boulevard and Tarawa Terrace housing areas, and the Hadnot Point plant continues serving its own area.
Health Conditions Linked to the Water
The Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes eight presumptive conditions for disability compensation tied to Camp Lejeune water exposure: adult leukemia, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and Parkinson’s disease. “Presumptive” means the VA assumes these conditions are connected to the contaminated water if you served there during the exposure period, without requiring you to prove the link yourself.
A broader list of 15 conditions qualifies veterans for VA health care benefits and family members for reimbursement of medical costs. Beyond the cancers listed above, this includes breast cancer, esophageal cancer, lung cancer, female infertility, miscarriage, fatty liver disease, kidney damage, scleroderma (an autoimmune condition affecting the skin and connective tissue), and neurobehavioral effects such as problems with mood, memory, or concentration.
Current Status of the Water and Cleanup
Camp Lejeune is a designated Superfund site, meaning the EPA oversees its long-term environmental cleanup. The base currently has multiple pilot studies and treatability studies underway to optimize groundwater treatment. A more recent concern involves PFAS, a class of industrial chemicals sometimes called “forever chemicals.” A 2021 study confirmed that PFAS contamination in the base’s groundwater has not migrated off-site, and as of 2022, 51 areas on base were recommended for additional PFAS investigation.
The Navy, EPA, and North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality continue to monitor soils and groundwater and maintain controls to prevent people from being exposed to remaining contamination. Twelve sites on base are actively being investigated for PFAS to determine how far it has spread through soil and water. The drinking water currently supplied to base residents is treated and monitored, but the broader environmental remediation of decades of industrial contamination remains an ongoing process.