STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 20.43 | OCT. 22, 2021
BIG STORY: Cancer survivor haunted by Lejeune’s toxic water
NEWS BRIEFS: Leatherman, state’s most powerful senator, in hospice care
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: What do you have to do?
COMMENTARY, Brack: Verify, then trust: How to get more out of your news diet
SPOTLIGHT: Palmetto Care Connections
FEEDBACK: Don’t set up students for failure
MYSTERY PHOTO: What and where are these ruins?
Cancer survivor haunted by Lejeune’s toxic water
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following news story gives more detail about toxic water at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune that was explored in an earlier commentary.
By Lewis Kendall, special to Statehouse Report | When James Island resident Rose Ann Boxx’s brother turned 32 in the late 1970s, he was diagnosed with colon cancer.
The diagnosis for Robert Thomas, came as a surprise — because of his age and also because there was no history of cancer of any kind on either side of the family. But another surprise loomed for kids like Rose Ann and Robert who spent formative years in the late 1950s at Camp Lejeune where their father was a Marine — the water was toxic, poisoned for more than three decades by chemicals that leaked into the water supply. Thousands — including Robert and, eventually, Rose Ann — got cancer.
This week, she recalled how her older brother Robert went through several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment to try to reverse the disease’s spread. In the throes of the disease, he managed to make jokes, she said, likening himself to a large Pac-Man, his body being slowly gnawed away by a foreign, floating enemy.
“They’ll take a little bit of me every time, but that’s okay,” he would tell Boxx.
For a while, things improved. He continued his job working for Charleston County and meeting up with Boxx for the occasional lunch. But then the cancer returned, this time in his lymph nodes. Robert died Sept. 30, 1982. He was 37.
“We should be thriving, instead of dying”
Nearly 40 years later, Boxx is still trying to make sense of her brother’s death. She counts herself among the thousands of family members of veterans fighting for recognition and compensation from the U.S. military over decades of negligent water contamination at Lejeune that caused myriad cancers and other significant negative health impacts in servicemembers, their dependents and employees on the base.
A new bill currently working its way through Congress aims to provide relief. The Camp Lejeune Justice Act would allow anyone exposed to contamination on the base between 1953 and 1987 to sue the government for damages. A separate bill, the Toxic Exposure in the American Military, or TEAM Act, would provide health care for veterans exposed to a number of toxic substances, including those at Lejeune.
Despite some 75 cosponsors, the Justice Act has remained stalled in committee. On Thursday, the bill was referred to the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. But advocates — a step short of hopeful — remain determined to push it across the line.
“We’re going to stand up for this issue until we see something happen,” said Curtis Crawford, 58, a Virginia resident who spent time on Lejeune when he was younger and now suffers from several conditions, including fibromyalgia and vitiligo, that he attributes to the water.
“None of us should have this stuff. We should be thriving instead of dying.”
A look back at Camp Lejeune
Built in 1942 in Jacksonville, N.C., as a training facility for troops for World War II, Camp Lejeune, at more than 240 square miles, remains one of the largest military bases on the East Coast. Lejeune currently supports roughly 100,000 people, including a mall and 80 firing ranges.
In the early 1980s, the Marine Corps discovered elevated levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the drinking water on Lejeune, including PCE (tetrachloroethylene) and TCE (trichloroethylene). Other contaminants, including refined petroleum products such as benzene — a known carcinogen — had tainted the drinking water far beyond levels deemed acceptable to both the EPA and CDC via the leaking of underground storage tanks, industrial area spills and waste disposal sites. As much as 1.1 million gallons of fuel may have leaked from storage tanks on the base, according to a separate report. Further research has indicated that the contamination may have begun as far back as 1948.
A 2017 CDC report concluded that the contaminants “increased cancer risk and increased potential of experiencing adverse, noncancer health effects” for those who had been on the base and consumed or otherwise been exposed to the water.
Considering Lejeune’s size and the fact that the contamination lasted decades, the government has since disclosed that as many as 1 million military and civilian staff and their families may have been affected. Nearly 275,000 have signed up as part of the Marines Corps’ database intended for those who lived or worked at Lejeune during the period in question, including more than 7,600 in South Carolina.
Moreover, documents show that, despite being notified of contamination as early as 1982, over the years the U.S. military has dragged its feet on addressing the issue and notifying those impacted.
Tired of the empty talk
For her part, Boxx is fed up with all the empty talk from politicians and military officials. Ever since she first found out about the contamination through a friend who saw it on the news, she’s reached out to a cadre of South Carolina’s members of Congress including GOP U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, as well as U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a Daniel Island Republican, and her predecessor, former Rep. Joe Cunningham, a Democrat now running for governor. Boxx said Mace, who is not a bill co-sponsor and didn’t respond to a comment for this story, and Cunningham engaged with her personally, while Scott sent along a form response. Boxx said she heard nothing from Graham’s office.
“They either need to do something or say they’re not going to do anything,” Boxx said. “But don’t send out this standard letter that says ‘We appreciate our military and dependents,’ because obviously you don’t.”
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a key North Carolina Republican, plans to reintroduce a Senate version of the Camp Lejeune bill in hopes of a vote, according to spokesperson Adam Webb.
“The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the House Veterans Affairs’ Committee are in the process of identifying the best path forward for a comprehensive toxic exposure legislative package,” Webb wrote in an email.
In 1989, Lejeune was declared a Superfund site by the EPA, one of some 130 such sites on military land across the country. But despite the ongoing cleanup effort, last year, the agency found elevated levels of PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in the groundwater in multiple areas on the base.
U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican who represents North Carolina’s third district that includes Jacksonville and Lejeune, described the situation as a “true failure” of leadership.
“This catastrophic exposure has devastated families in my district, and tragically, people in our community have been suffering the consequences of exposure for decades with no compensation from the federal government,” Murphy said in an interview.
“The Camp Lejeune Justice Act has received strong bipartisan support in the House, and I urge Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring this bill to the floor immediately for a vote. There is no bigger priority.”
“It wasn’t fair to him”
When Boxx talks about compensation, she can’t help but think about her brother’s funeral, which she and her mother had to pay for because his wife could not afford it.
“It wasn’t fair to him,” she said. “If he had been in the Marine Corps when he got this cancer, his family would have at least gotten 10 grand to bury him in a military cemetery.”
Boxx, now 72, has gone through her own share of health problems. In 2016, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was in and out of the hospital for years — for surgeries (including a double mastectomy) then radiation.
“Cancer is all about attitude. If you go through life thinking about how bad you got it, you’ll never make it,” she said. “You have to have friends that you can talk to and support from the people you love. That’s all it is: attitude, love and faith in God.”
Like many caught up in the Lejeune story, and any of the multitude of other environmental health catastrophes across the country, it’s difficult for Boxx to prove anything other than her exposure during the critical period in question. But she has found evidence to back up causation. She recently uncovered a report card from when she was on base, which showed a large number of absences due to illness.
“I don’t know how I got passed,” she said. “I was out of school more than I was in school.”
She remembers intestinal issues and other health troubles during puberty. Before her breast cancer diagnosis, she had several lumps appear that ended up being benign.
“Do I know absolutely positively that it happened there?” she said of her illness. “I don’t know.”
Boxx now appears to be cancer free. She’s retired and lives in James Island with her husband, making as much time as she can for her children and grandchildren. But the marks will always be with her. She suffers from memory loss or “chemo brain” that makes it difficult to remember much of what happened during the years of her disease. The ordeal put a tremendous strain on her relationships and finances. She thinks about her brother every day.
“I’m not expecting any monetary thing out of this. I just want somebody to acknowledge what dependents have to go through,” she said. “I don’t want some politician to say ‘I’m sorry this happened to you,’ because he’s not. I would rather have 39 years of my brother not dying. But that’s not going to happen. Nothing that they do or say is going to give me back my brother or give me back my health.”
Lewis Kendall is a freelance writer in Durham, North Carolina whose work focuses on environmental justice, labor and food systems. His work has appeared in the Guardian, The New York Times and other publications. Have a comment? Send to feedback@statehousereport.com
Leatherman, state’s most powerful senator, in hospice care
Staff reports | S.C. Sen. Hugh Leatherman, the 90-year-old Florence Republican who is South Carolina’s oldest and most powerful state lawmaker, is currently at home receiving hospice care after the discovery of what colleagues described as an inoperable cancer.
Leatherman, for whom a new port terminal is named in North Charleston, recently was hospitalized after experiencing severe abdominal pain, according to media reports. Surgery followed and an advanced, aggressive cancer was found.
Leatherman, who started his political career as a Democrat, has served in the legislature since 1981. He currently chairs the Senate Finance Committee, one of two legislative committees that controls the state’s purse strings.
In other recent news:
State to get COVID-19 vaccines for kids next month. Children ages 5-11 should start receiving Pfizer COVID-19 shots in the first week of November, according to state health officials. The state expects to receive 150,000 doses of the lower-dose shots next month. Also Wednesday, federal officials backed booster shots from Johnson & Johnson and Moderna — and said it was OK to mix or match boosters. More: The State | The New York Times.
Feds warn S.C., Arizona, Utah about workplace safety. The Biden administration’s U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration threatened Tuesday to revoke South Carolina’s handling of its own workplace safety enforcement due to refusal to adopt rules to protect health care workers from the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Henry McMaster has vowed to fight the threat. The warning was also issued to Republican-controlled Arizona and Utah. OSHA officials say the states are not complying with their promises to enforce labor standards that are at least as good as those adopted by the federal government when it comes to safety measures for workers at health care facilities that care for people sick with COVID-19. More. AP News | Spartanburg Herald-Journal.
DJJ seeks workers willing to endure low pay, violence. A staffing crisis at the state Department of Juvenile Justice is so bad there are more vacancies than officers actually working, the agency’s new acting director told state senators Tuesday. It will take at least six months to fix it, but a complete agency overhaul likely is needed, she testified. More: The State.
SC GOP’s October conference announces headliners. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, former White House physician Ronny Jackson, U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack, and GOP media personality Armstrong Williams, a native of Marion, will speak at the South Carolina GOP’s inaugural action conference held later this month in Myrtle Beach. More: The Post and Courier.
S.C. incumbents rake in cash ahead of 2022. Each incumbent U.S. House member and senator of South Carolina ended the year’s third fundraising quarter — from July to September — with more money in the bank, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. More: The State.
Melvin to become first woman to head S.C. Ports; Newsome to retire. South Carolina Ports Authority CEO Jim Newsome will retire in 2022 and his successor has been named: longtime SCPA executive Barbara Melvin. She will become the first woman to lead the authority and the first woman to lead a top 10 container port in the United States. Melvin will take over July 1 after a long period of port expansion that will make Charleston’s harbor the deepest on the East Coast by winter. More: Charleston Regional Business Journal.
First Lady credits S.C. ‘prayer partner’ with changing her life. First Lady Jill Biden said she was unable to pray after the 2015 death of her son Beau, but Robin Jackson of South Carolina helped “shape her life.” Jackson is the wife of the pastor at Brookland Baptist Church in South Carolina and she offered to be Biden’s “prayer partner” when she went to church. Biden has talked about Jackson before but without naming her. However, on Sunday, she attended the Baptist church and talked about her relationship with Jackson. More: AP News. Biden also will appear later this month at MUSC in Charleston.
Ethics complaint against S.C. fed judge sent to special committee. A judicial ethics complaint against U.S. District Judge Joe Dawson, a Trump appointee who serves in South Carolina, over a contract he signed with his former employer Charleston County will be sent to a special committee of judges for further investigation after an Oct. 19 order by 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Roger Gregory. The complaint was filed on the heels of a Post and Courier story in February that reported on the contract Dawson signed with Charleston County as he departed for the federal bench. More: The Post and Courier.
Rare songbird discovered in S.C. declared extinct. For decades, birders in the Lowcountry have trekked in and out of forests and wetlands searching for the Bachman’s warbler, one of North America’s rarest songbirds. It’s now been deemed extinct. More: The Post and Courier.
- Want more headlines every business day that are like this? Visit our friends at SC Clips.
What do you have to do?
Cartoonist Robert Ariail always has an interesting take on what’s going on in South Carolina. His weekly “Lowcountry” strip is originally drawn for our sister publication, the Charleston City Paper. Love the cartoon? Hate it? What do you think: feedback@statehousereport.com. Check out the Best of Charleston 2021.
Verify, then trust: How to get more out of your news diet
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | When word came this week that a former journalism professor passed away, it led to thoughts about how people’s consumption and understanding of news has evolved.
For 50 years, Donald Shaw taught students at the University of North Carolina’s journalism school, arguably one of the best in the nation. A man who sometimes seemed the stereotype of the absent-minded professor, he was wickedly smart as he labored to drill the tenets of basic newswriting and editing into the thick skulls of know-it-all grad students, some of whom would become know-it-all columnists.
During this training, Shaw’s mild but tough manner belied something that he didn’t talk much about: how he was a rock star in academic journalism circles. In the early 1970s, he and a colleague published research on how the media helped to set the agenda of people in a democracy. That may seem obvious today, but in pre-Internet days, this was the stuff from which legends are made.
In a groundbreaking paper followed by more research and a book, the authors described how news gatherers helped to shape political reality: “Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position. In reflecting what candidates are saying during a campaign, the mass media may well determine the important issues — that is, the media may set the ‘agenda’ of the campaign.”
When there were just a few networks and every town of any size had a newspaper, media were powerful voices in our communities. But as the Internet evolved, they started losing ground in influencing people.
Just look at how political campaigns have changed. When Shaw published his research, candidates relied on advertising, news stories and person-to-person organizing to prevail. But then came more sophisticated methods of politicking — polling, opposition research, professional fundraising, direct mail, websites and a broad array of ways to advertise and spend money.
Similarly, messaging changed. Today’s newspapers remain influential, but no longer rule the roost. In 2020, for example, 10 newspapers stopped printing in South Carolina, The Post and Courier recently reported. And because anyone now has the ability to publish information through the Internet, everyone is a publisher. These days, the noise of so much information is awfully loud.
While news organizations no longer have a stranglehold on what information consumers get, it’s caused a problem that Shaw’s agenda-setting couldn’t envision — a glut of information that’s so hard to sift through that noxious data creeps in to blur the truth. The cacophony of misinformation, disinformation and outright lies that are out there — along with ploys by foreign governments to create disharmony by using fake news reports to replace reality — is threatening societal norms.
So here are a few tips on how to be a more discriminating consumer of news thanks, in part, to a story in Scientific American:
Don’t overdose on news. The more news that you consume isn’t necessarily better. It can lead to feeling overwhelmed and anxious. Get what you need, but turn off the news so you don’t overdose.
Go past the headlines. Soon-to-retire news anchor Bill Sharpe of Charleston recently described how television news often provides headlines and how news consumers need to go to newspapers to learn more details. Six or seven words don’t tell a full story. To understand more about issues, you have to do some homework.
Check the facts. If something sounds fishy, it may well be. So use the power of the Internet to check other sources to see if the information is accurate. A couple of trusted journalism sources: PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org.
Diversify. Read credible sources outside your comfort zone to get a fuller picture. Credible news organizations should offer more than one viewpoint in a story. But you should also check various sources. If you generally watch TV only, go to a national newspaper website to verify something. Remember: the Facebook algorithm feeds you what it thinks you want to read. Move beyond that to make sure things are what they purport to be.
These days, we’ve got to work a little harder to make sure what we’re reading is true. Verify. Then trust.
- Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Palmetto Care Connections
Statehouse Report is brought to you at no cost thanks to the generous support of underwriters, such as Palmetto Care Connections.
Established in 2010, Palmetto Care Connections (PCC) is a non-profit organization that brings technology, broadband and telehealth solutions to health care providers in rural and underserved areas in South Carolina. PCC hosts the Annual Telehealth Summit of South Carolina presenting state and national best practices and trends, as well as providing networking connections for health care, technology and broadband professionals.
The leader of the South Carolina broadband consortium, PCC assists health care providers in receiving broadband savings through the Federal Communication Commission’s Healthcare Connect Fund program. Since 2013, PCC has helped providers save more than $25 million in broadband costs.
PCC co-chairs the South Carolina Telehealth Alliance, along with the Medical University of South Carolina, serving as an advocate for rural providers and partnering with organizations to improve health care access and delivery for all South Carolinians.
- Learn more about Palmetto Care Connections.
Don’t set up students for failure
To the editor:
This article caught my attention because similar incidents are happening throughout school districts in the entire United States. I live in South Carolina and know of an incident that happened several weeks ago.
Underaged children of color are being traumatized when the school authorities are too lazy to investigate the incident to find out the WHOLE truth. Whatever happened to principals, assistant principals, teachers, aides, etc., who took the job they signed up for seriously?
Control of the classroom is the key to avoiding many incidents that occur in the classroom today. Arresting students at an early age sets them and their community up for failure. And what happens when people can’t find jobs? They rely on the system to survive.
— Mildred Smith, McCormick, S.C.
Send us your thoughts
We receive a few comments a week and look forward to publishing. But often we can’t because we can’t verify the identity of the writer. To be published, you’ve got to provide us with contact information so we can verify your letters. Verified letters to the editor are published weekly. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. Comments are limited to 250 words or less. Please include your name and contact information.
- Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com
What and where are these ruins?
Here are some ruins somewhere in South Carolina. What can you tell us about this picture? Send your guess to feedback@statehousereport.com — and remember to include your name, home city and contact information.
Last week’s mystery, “What’s this painting all about?,” should have been pretty easy since there was a news brief that was a clue the size of Nebraska (the story about the portrait of Civil War hero and Reconstruction state Sen. Stephen Swails that finally got put on a wall in the Senate chamber).
The mystery photo showed an image of part of a 1999 painting by Rick Reeves called “The Old Flag Never Touched the Ground,” which showed a Civil War battle at Morris Island. The battle, depicted in the movie Glory, included fighting by then-new Black Union soldiers, including Swails.
Congratulations to several readers to pinpointed the painting: Steve Willis of Lancaster; Bill Segars of Hartsville; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Elaine Huff-Lowe of Inman; Elizabeth Jones, Jay Altman and Donna McGreevy, all of Columbia; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Barry Wingard of Florence; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; and Kevin Mertens of Greenville.
Huff-Lowe described the painting: “[It] depicts the 54th Massachusetts Infantry which was the first African American regiment and they fought for the Union in the War Between the States. The Battle is on Morris Island in the Charleston Harbor against Fort Wagoner. Sergeant William Carrey never let the flag touch the ground and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Although there were many casualties and the battle was lost, the bravery of the 54th opened the door for African Americans to serve in the Armed Forces. The movie “Glory” is a superb depiction of the story,
Graf offered a description of the action: “On July 16, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts saw its first action as part of a diversionary attack on James Island, across the Ashley River from Charleston, S.C. The first casualties totaled 45 men. Two days later, 600 men of the Regiment led a brigade-sized assault on Fort Wagner, located on Morris Island at the mouth of Charleston Harbor.
“The fort, constructed with a ditch and earthworks, was located on a thin spit of land, where the only approach was bordered by the ocean and a marsh. The 54th had no choice but to charge straight ahead into the fortifications. The attack was gallant, but disastrous. The unit was able to scale a single wall of the fort, but Confederate counterattacks forced the men in blue to retreat, suffering 116 killed in action, including its commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, and 156 wounded or captured. The unit gained recognition for its valor and showed that black Soldiers would indeed fight if given the chance.”
- Send us a mystery. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
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We Can Do Better, South Carolina!
So, you want to be a Veteran
Hope/Pray, one not exposed to chemicals/toxins..
By: CPL SWANSON, MICHAEL (USMC)
FDA does NOT do the science for SAFETY. Toxic exposure causes Parkinson’s disease, a hoax/fraud.
Hindsight , let me start by modifying a JFK quote.
Ask, not what your country can for you, but What your country WILL do to you.
Congressional Record/Senate Sept/5/1996, page S9885. “The Defense Department, in one of the GREATEST STONEWALLS of all time, but in keeping with their track record going all the way back to the First World War, denies any responsibility for ANYTHING HAPPENING to the soldiers that they are responsible for.” “Persian Gulf war Veterans…There is NO INTEREST in the DEFORMED children, NO INTEREST in Persian Gulf war mystery illnesses…war has changed, we are not talking about missiles, neutron bombs, tank warfare… We ARE TALKING ABOUT chemicals/toxins, WW1 and MUSTARD GAS and then the ATOMIC EXPERIMENTATION, thousands of soldiers were radiated, and the GOVERNMENT refused to do anything about it. It said “YOU CAN’T PROVE IT”. Then agent Orange”. For me it is toxic drinking water at CAMP LEJEUNE N.C., facebook there is FORT McClellan…
Vietnam, 113th congress, H.R. 2519, “VICTIMS OF AGENT ORANGE RELIEF ACT of 2013”.
From 1961-1971 about 19,000,000 gallons of 15 different herbicides were sprayed. Agents ORANGE, BLUE (has ARSENIC),PINK, WHITE, GREEN and PURPLE, 6 are named and 9 are not named.
Public Law 102-4, FEB/6/1991”AGENT ORANGE ACT of 1991, 38 USC 101 note. SECTION/3 under AGREEMENT WITH NATIONAL ACADEMY SCIENCES, (a) PURPOSE; use NON GFOVERNMENT organization to review and evaluate SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE on exposures…(j) alternate choice can NOT be part of the GOVERNMENT. For me/Camp Lejuene, GOVERNMENT let ATSDR ( I call A-TURD) agency toxic substances disease registry do the FABRICATION and SCIENCE FRAUD. Toxins do NOT destroy or kill dopamine, therefore toxins DO NOT cause PD-parkinson’s disease.
Let me explain the difference of SCIENTISTS and EPIDEMIOLOGISTS as if they were investigating FIRES.
They would ask scientists, what happened here ? SCIENTISTS, would say; we have matches and candles here, over there we have fireworks and gas cans and a downed electrical line. Then they ask the EPIDEMIOLOGISTS (which study dead people, use STATISTICS, charts NOT SCIENCE) what happened here? Their reply; FIRE. Who are you going to TRUST ?
Parkinson’s disease, for service connected compensation pulled on “old”VIETNAM veterans in 2010, but not the ”YOUNG” Persian Gulf veterans, now for me/Camp Lejeune in 2017. FEDERAL REGISTER JAN/13/2017-RULE and REGULATIONS on page 4179 , 3. Inclusion of Neurobehavioral effects and ParkinsonISM. Parkinson’s is medically distinguishable (brain scan), separately diagnosable from EVERYTHING ELSE. VA says the AVAILABLE EVIDENCE does not support anything other than Parkinson’s disease (atsdr/epidemiologists like FRANK BOVE and POWER STATISTS…science/fraud).
2017 it is ONLY Parkinson’s disease for me/CAMP LEJEUNE(no Parkinson-like symptom conditions). In an 2014 Veterans Agent Orange Update page/906, decided “there is NO RATIONAL BASIS ” to exclude Parkinson like symptoms from the service-connection category denoted as Parkinson’s disease.
If at CAMP LEJUNE N.C. from 1953-1987 and have a disability you can get service connected compensation PLUS 1 more monthly check for UNEMPLOYABILTY. I was there in 1986, 27 years later, from a newspaper article I learned of TOXIC DRINKING WATER. 20th year I was diagnosed with CEREBELLAR ATAXIA, I now walk/talk like a drunk and get in use tremors in my right hand.
GOVERNMENT chemicals of interest; TCE, PCE, VINYL CHLORIDE and BENZENE. 1989 CAMP LEJEUNE listed on National Priority List, toxic super fund site with 90 chemicals, 50 (not 4) are in the ground water. I would link degeneration of the cerebellum, ataxia, cerebellar ataxia then Parkinsonism to TCE and VINYL CHLORIDE. There are 157 FEDERAL FACILITIES on the list, TONS OF MILITARY BASES.
Did 2 claims, both denied. 2017, I went into PORTLAND OREGON FEDERAL COURT pro-se. Nothing but games, now case 7. Also went to 9th “CIRCUS” court of appeals, more games, swamp monsters MOSMAN, MARCO HERNANDEZ are DICTATORS. NAM 2008 update page 526, TREASON, they strongly recommend studies be done to produce such data (toxins cause PD).
Watch these; SEMPER FI Always Faithful and DELAY DENY HOPE YOU DIE. I WISH I HAD AN ATTORNEY, I NEED A HERO.
TOXIC MILITARY BASES; many on NPL list for 10-20-30 years; Adak Naval air station , Eielson and Elmendorf AFB, Fort Richardson, Fort Wainwright, in Alaska.
Williams AFB, Yuma USMC air station in Arizona.
California we have; Alameda A/S, Barstow USMC, Camp Pendleton (San Diego), Castle AFB, Concord/Naval, Edwards AFB, El Toro A/S, Fort Ord, George AFB, Hunters point, March and Mather, McLellan AFB, Moffet naval, Norton AFB, Sacramento army depot, sharp army depot, Travis AFB.
In Colorado we have; Air force plant/waterton, Rocky mtn arsenal, —-Connecticut we have; New London submarine base, ————Delaware we have ; Dover AFB———In DC we have; Washington naval yard——————Florida we have; Cecil Field NAS, Homestead AFB, Jacksonville naval, Pensacola naval a/s, Tyndall AFB, whiting field naval, ————-Georgia we have; USMC logistics/Albany, and Robins AFB————GUAM and Anderson AFB—————Hawiia has 2———-Idaho and mountain home AFB——–Illinois and Savana army,–Kansas and Fort Riley—Maine and Brunswick naval air, Loring AFB—————-Maryland and Andrews AFB, Curtis bay coast guard, Fort Dietrick, Fort George meade, Patuxent river naval, ————–Massacesettes and Fort Devens, Hanscom field AFB, Otis air national guard, south Weymouth naval, ———-New Hampshire and Pease AFB————New Jersey and McGuire AFB, naval air in Lakehurst, Piccatinny army, —————New York and Griffis AFB, Platts burg AFB, Seneca army depot——–North Carolina and Camp Lejeune (on since 1989 to present), Cherry Point USMC————Ohio and Wright-Patterson AFB————-Oklahoma and Tinker AFB—————–Oregon and Umatilla army depot—————-Pennsylvania and Letter Kenny army depot, Naval areas in mechanicsburg and warminister township, Tobyhanna army depot, willow grove naval———————-Rhode Island and Newport navy education area—————South Carolina and Paris Island————–South Dakota and Ellsworth AFB—————-UTAH and Hill AFB, Toole army depot——————Virgina and Fort Eustis army, Langley AFB, Virginia beach, Quantico, York town, Williamsburg, Dahlgren, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake——————————–Washington and American Lake Gardens/McChord AFB, Bangor Naval Submarine Base, Fairchild Air Force Base, Fort Lewis, Jackson Park Housing Complex (USNAVY), Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Puget Sound Naval———————–West Virginia Ordnance (USARMY)——————Wyoming and F.E. Warren Air Force Base—————END