Decades of anger and frustration are turning into cautious optimism for some victims of contaminated drinking water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, as about two dozen of more than 3,700 lawsuits seeking compensation for damages appear headed for trial later this year in federal court in North Carolina. Once settled, these so-called bellwether cases, selected to represent each of the illnesses found to be connected to the contamination, could help determine payments the government should make to more than 400,000 victims who have filed claims saying they or family members were harmed by tainted water at the base from the 1950s to the 1980s. The litigation is the result of a law passed by Congress in 2022 giving anyone who spent more than 30 days at Camp Lejeune between 1953 and 1987 two years to file damage claims with the Navy. If there was no resolution in six months, victims could file lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The legal process has been slow, bogged down by dozens of motions filed by the Justice Department questioning the links between the contamination and illnesses diagnosed years after the exposure. But in recent months the four federal judges assigned to the litigation have consistently ruled against the government and indicated they are anxious to get the bellwether cases moving in court, said Eric Flynn of the Bell Legal Group based in Georgetown, S.C., the law firm leading the plaintiffs' arguments. "I would say the court's recent orders go a long way toward putting the litigation in a place where it can proceed to trial, hopefully this year," Flynn said. "They want it off their docket," said Jerry Ensminger, a 24-year Marine Corps veteran who has been seeking justice for Camp Lejeune victims for 30 years, since he learned in the mid-'90s that the poisoned water likely caused the death of his daughter Janey, who was conceived at the base and died of leukemia in 1985 at the age of 9. "I've been watching very closely and we've noticed that the judges are just canning these nonsensical motions from the government," Ensminger said. "That's picked up pace here recently. They're signaling they want to get started on this." At the same time, Ensminger said he can't be too optimistic based on the length of time it's taken to get to this point. "It's like waiting for a baby to be born," he said. "The mother goes into false labor, or a couple bouts of false labor, and after a while your motivation and urgency wanes." Mike Partain, who was born at Camp Lejeune in 1968 and diagnosed with male breast cancer 39 years later, said he was ecstatic when Congress opened the door to the litigation in August 2022. His hopes for a fair resolution have dwindled since then, he said. "After four years and all the shenanigans that have been played by the Department of Justice, I'll believe it when I see it," he said in a phone interview from his home in Florida. "That's the sentiment of the community," said Partain, who manages a members-only website where thousands of Camp Lejeune victims share information about the litigation. "They're frustrated, they're disgusted by what's going on. I originally thought the trials were going to begin in the summer of 2023, then maybe 2024. Then it became 2025 and now here we are in 2026. I've heard rumors of June 2026, but what technicality is going to come next to delay everything?" A dumping ground turns dangerous As many as 1 million Marines and others who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune were exposed to toxic substances in cleaning solvents, fuel, batteries, ammunition and other wastes that were dumped on the sandy soils and leaked into the aquifer used for drinking water at the base on the North Carolina coast from the time it opened in 1941. The mostly colorless, odorless and tasteless contamination wasn't disclosed until 1985 and the threats to health didn't become public until Camp Lejeune was declared a Superfund site in 1989, triggering federal studies to determine the extent of the harms. Among the health problems connected to the contamination are birth defects, numerous types of cancer, Parkinson's disease and lung disease, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After scores of former Marines and family members were thwarted in efforts to seek compensation for illnesses and deaths they believe were caused by the contamination, Congress passed the 2022 law known as the PACT Act, providing full health coverage to veterans for illnesses linked to exposure to toxic contaminants during their service. The law included a section called the Camp Lejeune Justice Act that cleared the way for victims of the base's contaminated water to file administrative claims with the Navy and lawsuits if their claims were not settled. By the time the deadline for claims passed in August 2024, the Navy faced 408,860 administrative claims, and 3,718 of those victims went on to file lawsuits, according to a status report on the litigation submitted by the Department of Justice in February. In September 2023, the DOJ offered settlements of between $100,000 and $450,000 to claimants based on the amount of time they spent at Camp Lejeune and the type of health problems they suffered. Cases of premature death were offered an additional $100,000. But as of Feb. 26, settlements had been approved for 2,353 victims, or less than 1 percent of all the claimants, and 1,554 had been accepted, according to the DOJ status report. The total of all approved offers is $691.3 million, the department said, which would mean an average payout of just under $300,000 if all the offers were accepted. Ensminger and Partain said the main reason so few settlements have been accepted is that the government was only offering "pennies on the dollar," since most people with debilitating diseases such as lung or kidney cancer have enormous costs, even with health insurance. Partain said his treatments for breast cancer and related health problems have easily exceeded $1 million, but he would only qualify for $150,000 under the government's "elective option" because he spent only a year at Camp Lejeune, mostly in his mother's womb while she was drinking contaminated water. In any event, Partain is not eligible for the elective option because the DOJ guidelines say a diagnosis must come within 35 years of exposure to the water at Camp Lejeune. He was 39 when he found out he had breast cancer. "The whole settlement option the Navy created was one-sided," he said. "There was no input with science, no input with the plaintiff attorneys, they just arbitrarily on their own decided the 35-year requirement … and they decided on the value of the claim." Partain's lawsuit is one of those still pending in federal court. The DOJ announced March 10 that it was trying to expedite action on the claims and lawsuits. “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,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward in a news release. Flynn, of the plaintiffs' legal team, said there has been a slight uptick in DOJ activity. "In comparison to prior years, we have noticed an increase in the number of offers," he said. "Whether those will be accepted, we don't know." The DOJ news release said it estimated that damages being sought by claimants total more than $335 trillion, a figure Ensminger and Partain both called a "ridiculous" attempt to turn members of Congress against the victims. It would mean that each of the 400,000 claimants was seeking an average payout of $837.5 million. The DOJ media office did not respond to requests for comment. Proposed legislation Legislation in Congress aimed at speeding things along by moving some cases in the litigation to other federal courts and allowing victims to request jury trials have yet to be taken up in either chamber. A bill from Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., has more than 80 co-sponsors, but has not advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee. A similar measure from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., with seven co-sponsors has not seen action in the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Addressing contaminated water at Camp Lejeune and toxic exposures more broadly has consistently been a top priority for Senator Tillis and we remain hopeful for action this Congress," a spokesman for Tillis said in an email. Murphy did not respond to two requests for comment. A North Carolina Democrat who co-sponsored Murphy's bill, Rep. Deborah K. Ross, said she proposed attaching the bill to last year's defense authorization legislation , "but the House Republican leadership refused to bring it forward for consideration." “Camp Lejeune veterans put their lives on the line to defend our country and should not have to wait a second longer to access the justice they deserve," Ross said in an email. "My hope is that Republicans can resolve their internal disagreements, and we can move forward for the sake of the brave men and women who have served our country in uniform.”
