The Justice Department paid out more than $175 million in the last month to settle toxic exposure claims from some people sickened by contaminated water on the Marines’ Camp Lejeune, N.C., department officials announced. (U.S. Marine Corps)
The Justice Department paid out more than $175 million in the last month to settle toxic exposure claims from some people sickened by contaminated water on the Marines’ Camp Lejeune, N.C., department officials announced.
Those new payments covered 649 settlements, according to a DOJ news release that said the department is speeding the compensation process for the more than 400,000 victims who have filed claims under the 2022 Camp Lejeune Justice Act. The bill allowed those sickened by the base’s toxic water between 1953 and 1987 to sue the federal government for damages.
Since 2023, DOJ has paid about $708 million to 2,531 claimants — including the recent settlements — who agreed to take a preset payment outside of court, known as the elective option, to settle their cases. Meanwhile, attorneys representing toxic water victims said DOJ must do more to compensate those who did not agree to or were not eligible for the elective option.
“At the direction of the president and attorney general, this Department of Justice has reprioritized approving settlements for Camp Lejeune victims and families, many of whom sadly had to wait years for justice,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a March 10 statement. “I am proud of the work we have done in the past year to speed up the compensation approval process, and we will continue to approve settlements on a weekly basis.”
J. Edward Bell III, an attorney leading a group of plaintiffs’ lawyers in overseeing the case, said the DOJ’s statement was short-sighted.
“We appreciate any acceleration of help. I can’t say anything but good about that,” Bell said Monday. “But there are two things that bother me: No. 1 is the government is who caused these problems. … They hid the fact that this water was poisonous, and then they intentionally decided not to tell people for decades, and now they’re bragging that they’re going to accelerate payments that are woefully inadequate.”
Another lawyer involved in the case, Ronald V. Miller Jr., was also critical of the statement, saying it showed only minimal headway in the case.
“We appreciate the effort, but we do not think we have meaningful progress,” Miller said in a statement.
It remains unclear how much money the federal government will pay out to victims of toxic water at Camp Lejeune, where several contaminants — primarily dry-cleaning chemicals that leaked into wells from an off-post business — leached into on-post water supplies for decades.
The government has projected such payouts could exceed $21 billion. The Navy has estimated up to 1 million service members and civilians were likely exposed to water at the base containing toxins that have been linked to neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s, cancers, reproductive issues and other health defects.
More than 400,000 victims or their survivors have filed claims in the toxic water case. Of those claimants, only about 12% were eligible to consider the elective option, which pays victims or their surviving family members between $100,000 and $550,000 depending on their illnesses and the amount of time they spent at Camp Lejeune.
The remainder must go through the court process, which has faced repeated delays, Bell said. The first 25 cases — a group of victims of “Tier 1” illnesses including leukemia, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, known as bellwether cases — are expected to go to trial later this year.
Bell said DOJ attorneys have spent recent years attempting to remove some victims from the case.
“Instead, they should be saying, ‘Look, we messed up,’ ” Bell said. “We acknowledge back in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, we did something terribly wrong.”
He implored President Donald Trump to get involved in the case.
“President Trump should come in here and say, ‘I recognize what this government did, and I as president am going to take care of this and do it properly, do it quickly.’” Bell said. “And you know what would happen? It would get done. But unless the Department of Justice has some guidance, it will never happen.”
Meanwhile, as lawyers argue over how the court process should proceed, “claimants continue to die,” Miller said.
“These veterans and their families were poisoned on American soil while serving their country,” Miller said. “They should not have to spend their final years fighting the same government that made them sick.”
