The government’s lawyers working toward a resolution to the Camp Lejeune toxic water litigation say they hope to reach a global settlement before the end of the year.
Right now, attorneys with the firm Zois and Miller, representing some of the victims, said the focus is on gathering information to help determine how claims might be valued. To do that, a questionnaire is being finalized and will be sent to a randomly selected group of 2,500 people who have made claims.
Bellwether mediations—essentially test cases that help both sides understand how claims might be evaluated in settlement talks—are expected to begin by this summer. Lawyers said the mediations will play a big role in shaping a potential settlement structure.
The settlement masters have proposed creating a matrix which would establish a system for determining compensation based on specific factors, like the severity of injuries and how they are linked to Camp Lejeune’s contaminated water.
While they intend to have a structured settlement process in place by the end of 2025, plaintiffs’ attorneys said that doesn’t mean individual payouts will happen immediately.
Officials with the National Institutes of Health said water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated with industrial solvents and benzene from August 1, 1953, to December 31, 1987, and it’s considered one of the worst cases of water contamination in U.S. history. Nearly one million Marines, sailors, civilian employees, and military family members were potentially exposed.
According to the Project on Government Oversight, the Marine Corps kept the contamination secret for years, blocking many attempts to uncover the truth--even after the first news of water contamination broke in 1987 – seven years after a routine test uncovered contamination involving several volatile organic compounds.
Lawyers with Miller and Zois say TCE concentrations at Lejeune reached up to 280 parts per billion in some wells, far exceeding the EPA’s safe limit of 5 ppb.
Testing showed the contamination primarily originated from two main sources – it was used for degreasing and cleaning equipment in the Hadnot Point Industrial Area on-base and also seeped into the groundwater when the infamous ABC One-Hour Cleaners off-base improperly disposed of waste solvents.
In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Act as part of the broader PACT Act; it opened a two-year window that allowed people to sue and recover damages for harm from exposure to the contaminated water if they lived or worked aboard Camp Lejeune for at least 30 days and were diagnosed with specific illnesses. The window to file a claim closed last August.
