1997 Public Health Assessment (PHA) (FAQs)

1. Why did the 1997 PHA not mention benzene was present in well 602?
2. Why did ATSDR remove the 1997 PHA from the ATSDR Camp Lejeune website?
3. When will the revised PHA be available?

1. Why did the 1997 PHA not mention benzene was present in well 602?

The 1997 PHA does mention benzene in Appendix B (page B-2-4). It does not mention or discuss benzene in the main body of the PHA because we assumed, incorrectly at the time, that well # 602 was not used to supply contaminated drinking water to residents of Camp Lejeune.

2. Why did ATSDR remove the 1997 PHA from the ATSDR Camp Lejeune website?

In the time since the 1997 PHA was published, additional information emerged related to exposures to volatile organic compounds in drinking water at Camp Lejeune. Due in part to ATSDR’s ongoing extensive water modeling and exposure reconstruction study, we learned that communities serviced by the Holcomb Boulevard distribution system were exposed to contaminated water for a longer period than we knew in 1997. Also, at the Camp Lejeune site, benzene was present in one drinking-water supply well in the Hadnot Point drinking water system. That well was shut down sometime prior to 1985. This information should have been included in the PHA but was not. The PHA should have mentioned the contamination and stated that the extent of exposure to benzene from that well was unknown.

3. When will the revised PHA be available?

ATSDR plans to revise the PHA once the water modeling study is complete. Water modeling is a scientifically complex. In the meantime, we continue to stand behind the information related to the other nine pathways.