These Marines drank Camp Lejeune’s poison. The road to justice is long

Joan Palumbo wasn’t told the danger she was in when she stepped under the showerhead in her bathroom in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

She wasn’t told about the toxins mixing into her daughter’s food every time she blended formula with water from the kitchen sink.

Or that cooking her own food in that same water would eventually lead to her death.

Palumbo didn’t know that beginning in 1953 toxic chemicals had begun seeping through the ground into two of the eight water treatment plants on Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps base near Jacksonville where she and her husband, Fred, lived in the Tarawa Terrace neighborhood.

Trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, benzene and vinyl chloride, deadly chemicals known to cause health problems including miscarriages, birth defects, cancers and childhood leukemia, leaked from underground fuel storage tanks, an off-base dry cleaning facility, industrial area spills and waste disposal sites. The contamination of the base’s waters continued through 1987 and mostly affected the Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point neighborhoods.

It is estimated that more than 1 million people were likely exposed to the toxic waters on Camp Lejeune. Beginning in August, half of those people had filed claims asking for the government to make right what happened to its Marines and their families — but no offers from the government have been extended. And without those offers, the claimants have been forced into litigation — potentially for years — if they want justice.

Palumbo is among those people. The Palumbos moved in 1962 to Camp Lejeune and together had their first child. Fred deployed overseas in 1963.

Subtle signs include miscarriage, premature births

The first signs of trouble for the Palumbo family from drinking Lejeune’s water were subtle. While Fred was serving across the world from his wife, Joan suffered a miscarriage.

That same year, Joan became pregnant, this time with twin daughters. They were born three months premature, and entered the world fighting for their lives. The Palumbos’ daughter, Kristine, died after three days, on New Year’s Day. Her sister’s fight continued for six long months before she was able to leave the hospital and join the rest of her family at home.

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