By The Associated Press

Published: Friday, January 18, 2013, 7:58 p.m.
Updated: Friday, January 18, 2013

RALEIGH, N.C. — Many more Marines and their relatives could be eligible for compensation for illnesses now that a federal agency determined that the water at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune was contaminated four years earlier than previously thought.

In a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said computer modeling shows that drinking water in the residential Hadnot Point area was unsafe for human consumption as far back as 1953. President Obama signed a law last year granting health care and screening to Marines and their dependents on the base between 1957 and 1987.

“This is yet another piece of the puzzle that's coming together and slowly exposing the extent of the contamination at Camp Lejeune — and the Marine Corps' culpability and negligence,” said Mike Partain, a Marine's son who was born at the southeast North Carolina base and who says he is one of at least 82 men diagnosed with breast cancer. “This is four years overdue.”

The Marines were slow to react after groundwater sampling first showed contamination on the base in the early 1980s. Some drinking water wells were closed in 1984 and 1985, after further testing confirmed contamination from leaking fuel tanks and an off-base dry cleaner.

Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to tainted water. It's not clear how many Marines and family members will be affected by the expansion of the time line.

Partain estimates thousands because the Hadnot Point water system supplied the barracks where the majority of the Marines lived, as well as the Naval Hospital, unmarried officer barracks and some family housing areas. “It is by far the largest exposed population on the base,” Partain said.

In a letter to Gen. Allison Hickey, VA undersecretary for benefits, the head of the toxic substance registry noted that a preliminary water modeling report showed that the period covered under the 2012 legislation didn't go back far enough, and that volatile organic compounds exceeded maximum contaminant levels at Hadnot Point as early as August 1953.

“I hope this information is useful as the Department of Veterans Affairs evaluates claims from veterans who served at USMC Camp Lejeune prior to the release of our full water modeling report in the spring,” agency Director Christopher J. Portier wrote in the letter, dated Wednesday.

The letter was first released publicly during a meeting Thursday of the agency's community assistance panel at the disease registry headquarters in Atlanta. Former Marines and family members angrily questioned officials about why these studies have taken so long to complete.

A VA representative said that the approval rate for claims related to the water contamination has been about 25 percent so far. As of September, the VA had granted 17 breast cancer claims and denied 13 others; not all were males.

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