The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has removed the 1997 Camp Lejeune Public Health Assessment (PHA) from this Web site.
In that PHA, ATSDR concluded that exposures to VOCs in the drinking water occurred at Camp Lejeune. ATSDR declared those past exposures a public health hazard and maintains that position today.

Since the 1997 PHA was published, additional information has emerged related to exposures to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in drinking water at Camp Lejeune. Due in part to ATSDR's extensive water modeling and exposure reconstruction study, we have learned that communities serviced by the Holcomb Boulevard distribution system were exposed to contaminated water for a longer period than we used in the 1997 evaluation. Also, at the Camp Lejeune site, benzene was present in some drinking-water supply wells shut down sometime prior to 1985. This information was not included in the PHA. Based on the information that we know today, the PHA should have mentioned the contamination and stated that the extent of exposure to benzene from those wells was unknown. The full extent of the exposure is still being determined. Thus, the 1997 Assessment may be misleading because the information upon which it was based was incomplete.

Persons interested in reading the PHA may request a printed copy by contacting the ATSDR Records Center by telephone at 770-488-0707 or by e-mail at atsdrrecordscenter@cdc.gov.

We will post additional public health assessment updates to this Web page as they become available.