Veterans and family members who claim they were injured due to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune will use the Biden administration’s final rule banning certain chemicals to prosecute their case over toxic water at the Marine base, according to a notice they filed in North Carolina federal court.
Looking to head off any allegations of “prejudice or lack-of-notice” the federal government might lean on, the Camp Lejeune litigants informed the district court on Thursday that they want to use the “late-breaking” statements and other data released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its rule banning trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene, or TCE and PCE, from products such as cleaning solvents and brake cleaners.
Most notably, the EPA’s press release, issued Dec. 9, “identifies the water contamination at Camp Lejeune as evidence of the harm caused by these chemicals,” the plaintiffs said in their court filing.
“The EPA’s decision is ‘grounded in the best-available science that demonstrates the harmful impacts of PCE and TCE,'” the plaintiffs said. “The finalized restrictions on TCE and PCE reflect a growing scientific consensus that these chemicals, even at low levels, present an unreasonable risk to human health.”
The plaintiffs told the court that the EPA’s announcement came on the same day they were supposed to submit expert reports on general causation.
The plaintiffs are servicemembers and their families who stayed at the Marine base in 1953 and 1987. There are about 2,000 suits pending in the Eastern District of North Carolina that seek damages from the government over water contamination at the base, when the water system was replaced.
Many of the plaintiffs accused the federal government of intentionally delaying publishing test results that showed the water was tainted, stalling for nearly a decade so that the statute of limitations would expire.
Congress signed into law the Camp Lejeune Justice Act in 2022, which lifted time barriers for veterans and their families to pursue claims against the government. Under the law, plaintiffs must file administrative claims before suing. In August, the plaintiffs leadership group told the federal court that there were nearly 550,000 of these claims filed with the U.S. Navy.
The EPA prohibited the manufacture and processing of TCE for most commercial and all consumer products within one year, according to the agency’s risk management rule. The phaseout of PCE manufacturing, processing and distribution for all consumer use and many industrial uses will largely take place in less than three years, the EPA statement said. However, there will be a 10-year phaseout for the use of PCE in dry cleaning, under which the use of the chemical in newly acquired dry-cleaning machines will be banned after six months, according to the agency announcement.
The veterans and families are represented by J. Edward Bell III of the Bell Legal Group PLLC, Zina Bash of Keller Postman LLC, Elizabeth J. Cabraser of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, W. Michael Dowling of the Dowling Firm PLLC, Robin L. Greenwald of Weitz & Luxenberg PC, James A. Roberts III of Lewis & Roberts PLLC and Mona Lisa Wallace of Wallace & Graham PA, among others.
The government is represented by Adam Bain and Haroon Anwar of the U.S. Department of Justice‘s Civil Division.
The case is Camp Lejeune Water Litigation v. U.S., case number 7:23-cv-00897, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
–Additional reporting by Madeline Lyskawa and Emily Field. Editing by Michael Watanabe.
