It is widely considered one of the worst mass toxic exposure events in United States history. For more than thirty years, the federal government estimates that nearly one million military service personnel, their families, and civilian employees drank, cooked with, and bathed in water severely poisoned by industrial solvents at U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.
For decades, North Carolina’s strict statute of repose laws completely blocked victims from seeking legal accountability. While that barrier dissolved when the historic Camp Lejeune Justice Act was signed into law in August of 2022, massive roadblocks remain. Four years after the legal window opened, more than 400,000 administrative claims are deadlocked within a heavily backlogged federal system, leaving aging veterans stuck in a permanent legal limbo.
That staggering backup led to the introduction of the Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act more than one year ago. Designed as a statutory "course correction," the bill remains stalled in committee over political disputes regarding attorney fee caps and overall federal costs.
Marine veteran and toxic water survivor Brian Amburgey says the continuous gridlock is costing lives. Amburgey formed the grassroots advocacy group Lejeune Veterans for Justice and is organizing a mass rally at the Lejeune Memorial Gardens in Jacksonville on August 19th.
Amburgey notes the rally's location was chosen deliberately because it sits near a historical infant burial section at a local cemetery, known to the community as "Baby Heaven".
"We’ll be real close to what they call Baby Heaven. It's where a lot of the children are buried that have passed away from the water, the innocent children that had no clue what was going on.” Brian Amburgey.
Between 1953 and 1987, the toxic water distribution networks on base caused a devastating, unprecedented spike in stillbirths, miscarriages, and fatal birth defects. Because the volume of infant deaths was so shockingly high, local funeral directors stepped in to donate those specific burial plots to grieving military families who couldn't afford sudden funeral costs.
Eastern North Carolina Congressman Dr. Greg Murphy is the primary author of the bipartisan update bill. Amburgey says the local lawmaker is expected to take the stage at the gardens at 11:00 a.m. to address the crowd.
Amburgey noted, “He should be there anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to speak on behalf of all the veterans and the family members and the civilian workers that was poisoned by the water there at Camp Lejeune.”
The proposed legislation seeks to lower the burden of proof for victims and restore a critical constitutional right that federal judges stripped away earlier in the litigation: the right to a full jury trial.
“We need to get these bills passed for the jury trials, which somehow the career attorneys for the Department of Justice convinced the federal judges that veterans and family members are not entitled to jury trials. So, we want to get our congressional rights back for that. We also have the causation, which some of the evidence that is from ATSDR Department of Justice does not want us to use.” Brian Amburgey
The ATSDR Amburgey refers to is the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry—a federal health body under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agency's definitive epidemiological studies proved that Lejeune’s water supply contained carcinogens up to thousands of times higher than safe limits, directly causing various cancers, Parkinson's disease, and systemic ailments.
The new bill would also expand the court caseload to other regional jurisdictions. Currently, the entire mountain of active lawsuits is bottlenecked under a panel of just four federal judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Amburgey warns that at the current pace, the vast majority of sick victims will not live long enough to see their day in court.
Amburgey warned, “In four years, only a half a percent of the 407,000 claims has been settled. At the rate it's going, it would take another 396 years to settle all the claims. The Department of Justice is just waiting for all of us to die. That way they don't have to pay nothing out. I mean, it would be the year 2424 at the rate it's going now to settle all the claims.”
Following the August event in Jacksonville, advocates plan to take the fight back to Washington, D.C., with consecutive rallies outside the U.S. Capitol building scheduled for September 14th and 15th.
The Jacksonville rally is on August 19th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Lejeune Memorial Gardens.
More information is available at the Lejeune Veterans for Justice Facebook page.
Anyone with questions can also reach out via email.
