Greater than half 1,000,000 individuals have sought compensation from the US army for damages brought on by contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Reuters has revealed.
Harmful chemical compounds have been first found within the water provide of the North Carolina facility in 1982. Based on the US authorities, the contaminated water could have affected an estimated million individuals with situations comparable to kidney most cancers, bladder most cancers and leukemia between 1953 and 1987.
The US Navy has acquired greater than 546,500 claims for compensation, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing a court docket submitting. The quantity may go up or down by “just a few thousand” after the Navy goes over the claims to take away duplicates.
Administrative claims needed to be filed by the August 10 deadline to make the plaintiffs eligible to obtain compensation. The deadline was set by the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, signed into regulation precisely two years prior.
The Navy stated it was reviewing every declare and “is dedicated to resolving each legitimate CLJA declare as pretty and expeditiously as doable.”
To this point, greater than 2,000 lawsuits have been filed in a federal court docket in North Carolina by plaintiffs whose claims weren’t resolved administratively. The primary trials could start subsequent yr. Solely about 150 instances have been resolved by way of administrative process as of early August, the Navy stated within the submitting.
Ought to all the executive claims go to trial, that may make the Camp Lejeune water case the most important declare to damages because the 3M earplugs scandal, Reuters famous.
The Minnesota-based firm had made the protecting tools for the US army that was broadly utilized in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2001 and 2015, however left many troops complaining about listening to loss. Finally, greater than 390,000 filed claims towards 3M, in what was described because the “largest multidistrict litigation” in historical past. Final yr, 3M paid $6.01 billion to settle the 260,000 or so remaining claims.
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