By DANA LIEBELSON
The evidence that the Department of the Navy is using legally questionable methods to stop the release of information related to the water contamination scandal at Camp Lejeune keeps piling up.
An inside source informed us yesterday that a designation of "For Official Use Only" is being applied to Camp Lejeune water contamination-related documents—one of the many vague, pseudo-classifications the Obama Administration has done away with under an Executive Order. In the case of Camp Lejeune, this marking is extremely troubling—and has no legal justification.
“For Official Use Only is a marking that has no legitimacy, as there is no statute authorizing it, or authorizing a regulation,” said Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org. “When agencies such as the Department of Defense use it to bully or intimidate others into withholding information, it is not binding to anyone—including any other government entity.”
The confidential source also told POGO that the Navy is essentially twisting the arm of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services that recently released a report on Camp Lejeune’s water distribution system. We are told that ATSDR is being pressured to submit the Camp Lejeune water contamination-related documents to the Navy for screening, redaction, and/or approval—and this includes all of the documents previously released to the public.
As Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine who lived at Camp Lejeune with his family, told POGO, "It certainly appears that the Department of Health and Human Services is more inclined, in this case, to protect the polluter than the health of the people who were exposed at Camp Lejeune"
As we pointed out last month, ATSDR needs to follow the law—not blindly obey the demands of the Navy and Marine Corps, given their long history of covering up information related to the water contamination.
Last month, POGO and other concerned organizations sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta urging for rulemaking to ensure the proper implementation of the new, relevant FOIA exemption—the Department of Defense Critical Infrastructure Security Information exemption and its “public interest balancing test.” Under this exemption, specific information about the water distribution system at Camp Lejeune has a strong case for full disclosure. It is of vital importance to the public, especially in the interest of health and safety. But it’s increasingly looking like the Navy isn’t trying to uphold the public’s interests at all—it’s looking after its own.
Dana Liebelson is POGO’s Beth Daley Communications Fellow.
Photo via Klearchos Kapoutsis.
With this scenario repeated over and over why on earth would we trust anything the fed. gov. said regarding the safety of Fracking and our water supplies? There is a leaking Superfund site in Pennsylvania (the Robt. Grimes property of Tionesta, PA, in Forest County) that is smack dab in the middle of a national forest and the EPA has refused to respond to a FOIA request or reopen their investigation when this toxic waste is reportedly flowing into a drinking supply. This sounds like another dangerous EPA coverup. When will people realize that we can not depend on agencies that have covered up for industry and the 1% to admit that they have poisoned the 99% with premeditated random homicide? We cannot expect the CDC and the Dental Association to admit they have encouraged the deadly practice of drinking water fluoridation for years. This is the prime example of how our government has been corrupted not only in the service of the 1% but in covering up their egregious poisonous sins. The congressional mandate to protect American citizens should not apply to chronic war, but to stopping the poisoning which has killed and maimed more Americans than all the wars put together.
Posted by: Elizabeth M.T. O'Nan | Feb 04, 2012 at 03:04 PM
Extremely disturbing as a parent. You want our young people to be patriotic and enlist and defend the U.S. all the time you are denying open flow of information about a condition at a base that may have harmed them.
Pick one. You either care about the health and welfare of our armed forces, work in concert with science to protect them,or choose of obfuscate and impede the flow of information to protect yourselves. Mistakes happen. The cover-up lasts longer than an ethical release of info., and remediation. If we can't trust you, you can't have our sons and daughters.
Posted by: Anita Mitchell | Feb 04, 2012 at 10:55 AM