ATSDR MEDIA ANNOUNCEMENT

ATSDR To Convene Panel to Review Water Modeling for
U.S. Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

For Immediate Release: March 17, 2005

ATLANTA - The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) will convene a review panel to evaluate the agency's water modeling and field data gathering efforts at the U.S. Marine Corps Base at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The meeting will be held March 28 and 29 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and will be open to the public.

The water modeling activities - called Historical Reconstruction Analysis for Volatile Organic Compound Contamination of Drinking Water Supplies at U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune - will estimate the distribution of contaminants in drinking water at residences and other locations on the base.

During the two-day meeting, panel members will review and provide feedback about ATSDR's activities from March through December 2004. Those activities include: data collection activities, field investigations, and modeling analyses of groundwater resources and present-day (2004) water-distribution systems. The water modeling activities have not been completed.

People who lived in some of the base housing areas at Camp Lejeune during 1968 to1985 were exposed to drinking water contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). ATSDR has conducted several public health activities to find out if these chemicals had adverse health effects on Camp Lejeune residents.

The panel will be held at the ATSDR office, 1825 Century Center Blvd., Room 1A and 1B, Atlanta. More information about the meeting, TCE and PCE, health effects linked with these chemicals and ATSDR activities at Camp Lejeune can be found at www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/lejeune.

Established by Congress in 1980 under the Superfund law, ATSDR conducts public health assessments at each of the sites on the EPA National Priorities List, as well as other sites when petitioned. Headquartered in Atlanta, ATSDR is staffed by more than 400 health professionals including epidemiologists, physicians, toxicologists, engineers and public health educators.

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Members of the news media can request an interview with ATSDR staff by calling the ATSDR Office of Communication at 770-488-0700.