Fuel Losses and Benzene at Hadnot Point

[JME]

Jim Fontella recently discovered a document on the DVD's provided by the ATSDR which stated that 800,000 gal.'s of fuel had been lost from the Hadnot Point fuel farm (HPFF) and as of the date on that document (November 1996) they had recovered 500,000 gal.'s. All of the previous DON/USMC reports stated that somewhere between 23,150 and 33,150 gal.'s were known to have been lost. There has now been a document discovered which puts the total fuel losses from the HPFF as high as 1.1 million gal.'s of fuel of which most of it was gasoline which has a very high benzene content. The ATSDR is now aware of these discoveries and this information can now be used in the water models for the Hadnot Point and Holcomb Blvd. water systems.

There is little doubt in my mind why the DON/USMC have been so strongly opposed to funding a mortality study for Camp Lejeune, they have known all along how much fuel had been leaked into the ground and groundwater. They also know that there were operating water supply wells which were in very close proximity to the fuel farm, they also know full well that benzene is a known human carcinogen. I am convinced that they also have a very good idea of what this mortality study will reveal, A LIVING NIGHTMARE!

Nobody feels more frustrated by events such as what happened today with the S-1518 bill than I do, but I can assure all of you that there are a lot more battles to be fought and I truly believe that we have more ammo than does the opposition. They are on the defense and we are on the offense, all of their dirty secrets are being laid bare and exposed, like I said above, I truly believe from what we have discovered that there will be a nightmare uncovered regarding what happened at Camp Lejeune. My only fear is that when it is finally uncovered it will be done one body at a time...Jerry Ensminger

[usmc_wlh1975]

It is already a living nightmare in my eyes. It was bad enough if they gave you 23,000 gallons of fuel to drink in your water. This amount is totally mind boggling!!!

I am afraid that you are right on what they would prefer- everyone dead so that they can do one mea culpa and be done with it. I will never understand that mentality....

[JME]

We have also discovered some reports which describe the hydrology in the area of the fuel farm and that severe over pumping of water supply wells from the aquifer in and around the Hadnot Point industrial area had occurred in the past. This over pumping is what pulled a lot of the fuel down to the 140-150 foot depth and it is why the fuel was pulled to the supply wells.

We have spoken with former water treatment plant operators who stated that the M.O. for many former plant operators was to use the wells which were closest in proximity to the plant. The plant, HP-20 was located right off of the traffic circle beside the old bus station, the industrial area supply wells would have been the most convenient to the plant. This puzzle is starting to take shape...Jerry

[Mary Blakely]

Can you imagine besides the obvious threat to life this size of a fuel spill has caused,but the amount of Lead that was in that water?You know my concerns about the lead content of our exposure,but it is the one toxin that remains in our bodies that is still there.What if we all got a test to see if there is a commonality that can be used to our advantage?What are your thoughts on this, Team?

[Mary Blakely]

Can you imagine besides the obvious threat to life this size of a fuel spill has caused,but the amount of Lead that was in that water?You know my concerns about the lead content of our exposure,but it is the one toxin that remains in our bodies that is still there.What if we all got a test to see if there is a commonality that can be used to our advantage?What are your thoughts on this, Team?Semper Fi!Mary Blakely

[JME]

The magnitude of these fuel losses and the likely contamination of the water supply wells near the Hadnot Point fuel farm (HPFF) continues to get worse and worse. I have discovered this week that the ATSDR are now moving forward with a multi-phased modeling technique rather than a single phased model so as to get a better model of this fuel contamination. The attachment I pasted below is a document published by the American Petroleum Institute, if you go to page 18 of that document it explains that petroleum products that get into the groundwater can not be accurately modeled with a single phased modeling system. As more information becomes available on this issue we will keep everyone informed...Jerry Ensminger


http://www.api.org/ehs/groundwater/lnapl/index.cfm

[Mary Blakely]

Does this mean there is a potential that the water being used now on the Base could still have some of the contaminants in it?

[usmc_wlh1975]

Does this mean there is a potential that the water being used now on the Base could still have some of the contaminants in it?

Mary,

REMOVED FOR INACCURACY 2/10/2010 . The water and land is still highly polluted in various places on the base , with various toxins, and this is covered up by land use restrictions currently where remediation was too expensive or where current technology does not allow for specific remediation to EPA safe levels. One example: http://www.bakerenv.com/camplejeune_irp ... /04142.pdf

Additionally, there have been "accidents" in the recent past which will have impacted various water and land environments around the periphery of the base. A quick search on this forum will reveal several news articles concerning contaminated water and sewage releases. There may be additional environmental problems which have not come to light as of yet also, remember that it took nearly 25 years before the first reports of major toxins were made available to the EPA.

Just my opinion.

[JME]

There are land use restrictions in place and thankfully they have learned something from their past, they have moved all water supply wells away from areas that present any type of contamination danger. There was one problem with the previous response however, they have not cleaned all of this contamination up. Because of the pumping/pulling action of the water supply wells near the Hadnot Point fuel farm it pulled these LNAPL's (Light, Non-aquious Phased Liquids) or petroleum products deep into the aquifer where it has become trapped underneath the different layers of rock and clay. This was happening for many decades and currently there aren't any technologies available to remediate that problem, there are still massive volumes of benzene trapped in the intermediate and deep aquifers in the area of the HPFF...Jerry Ensminger

[usmc_wlh1975]

Okay. I stand corrected.

Not the first time my opinion has been wrong.

I have just finished reading the porosity material that you cited, Jerry, and I understand what they are saying. The amount of contamination of the water at any given time is dependent upon the water volume in the aquifer at any given time and the formation of fuel channels to allow the isolated pockets of fuel to escape from captivity within the porous material. The lower the non-wetting fluid pressures are the more isolated the pockets of fuel become one to the other due to wetting fluid encapsulation.

I have it now.

[Mary Blakely]

Thanks Guys,I think understand now also!

[bedworth53]

Sorry to feel the need to beat this dead horse but does the above discussion mean that the dates for contamination could be wrong. I routinely see the "cut-off" for contamination as 1987 but the pumping action for the HPIA Water Plant could have still continued to pull contaminants into the water supply for many years after this date. Is this correct or am I not grasping the discussion?
I guess this point could be important for those of us with brain tumors as BTEX is a known carcinogen that is directly linked to brain cancer.
Thanks
Dave Bedworth
St Petersburg

[JME]

Dave,
Please remember that just because they (DON/USMC) claim that exposures in drinking water ended in early 1985 for the Hadnot Point drinking water systems, we have found documents showing levels of benzene at 2,500ppb and 38ppb in the HP tap water in November and December of 1985 respectively. So, according to their own documents the exposures didn't end in February 1985 as they have previously claimed, the water model for the Hadnot Point and Holcomb Blvd. water distribution systems should shed some new light on this issue.

Secondly, just because the drinking water (supposedly) got cleaned up sometime in the mid 1980's doesn't belie the fact that the plumes of contaminants were still underneath occupied buildings where people worked day in and day out. We are in touch with a former Camp Lejeune fire fighter who remembers the evacuation of building 1101 in the industrial area during the 1990's because of strong fuel odors (his wife worked there). He has already stated that they took air quality samples in that building with instruments designed for that purpose and the readings were "off the chart!" The same applies to buildings which were located above or near these underground plumes of VOC's.......Jerry Ensminger

P.S; We now need to find the report that would have been filed for the evacuation of building HP-1101.

[Mary Blakely]

Where would be a good place to start looking?

[usmc_wlh1975]

Mary,

I can think of only two places (other than witnesses getting in touch with someone) where you could find this information.

1. FOIA requests for all documents which mention this location on the Camp Lejeune base during the early 1990s. This would be an expensive search that the government might require you to pay for. They can waive the fees only under certain well defined situations.

2. Contacting a local news organization and asking them to dig through their archives to find any reference to buildings being evacuated due to fuel odors in the 1990s. Or for that matter, since the mid 1980s. They have research staff in their archive (morgues) which do this sort of thing if they are a large enough paper.

That would be about it, as far as I can see....


FOUND ONE!!!

http://www.lejeune.usmc.mil/emd/rab/minutes/hpff.htm