Contaminated Wells on Marine Base May be Behind Birth Defects; India Resumes Work on Controversial Dam
NATALIE PAWELSKI, HOST: This week, on</s>EARTH MATTERS: at a Marine base, a hidden danger, and a search for potential victims. A massive water project sparks celebrations and promises of protest. And a flock of young birds, and their mechanical mama, may bring new hope to an endangered species. Those stories, and more, on this edition of EARTH MATTERS. A watery threat on a Marine base. Hi, welcome to EARTH MATTERS. I'm Natalie Pawelski. Sixteen families that lived in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, may have been drinking poison every time they had a sip of water. Health officials think contaminated wells may have caused a rash of birth defects and childhood cancers. Brian Cabell reports.</s>BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT(voice-over): All that's left today of the contaminated wells at Camp Lejeune are rusty pipes sticking out of the ground. The wells have been closed for 15 years. But for the Marine Corps, the problem, potentially massive, remains. Federal health officials suspect that pregnant women on this base between 1968 and 1985 may have given birth to a disproportionately high number of babies with birth defects and cancers. The water they were drinking contained excessive levels of two carcinogenic chemicals: the solvent PCE, dumped by a former dry cleaner; and the degreaser TCE, apparently dumped by the motor pool. The concentration of the chemicals, according to environmental health professor Jeff Fisher, was 10 times higher than at other comparable toxic sites.</s>JEFF FISHER, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA: At least a factor of 10, going from 100-part-per-billion contamination level for solvents to 1,000.</s>DEBORAH HORNEY, FORMER CAMP LEJEUNE RESIDENT: I was devastated.</s>CABELL: Deborah Horney was one of the Camp Lejeune mothers. She had a miscarriage there, then another child who developed a large mass on his neck that was surgically removed but never identified. Doctors were baffled.</s>D. HORNEY: We actually consider ourselves relatively lucky compared to some of the people who had children who were born severely deformed and may have lived a few days; people had children who died.</s>CABELL: That was the case with another Camp Lejeune wife, Martha Vaughn. Her daughter died when she was a month old.</s>MARTHA VAUGHN, FORMER CAMP LEJEUNE RESIDENT: When she was born, she had a knot on her stomach and they told us that she needed to have surgery, that her intestines were somehow tangled together, her large and small intestines.</s>CABELL: Vaughn says doctors told her they had seen two other newborns with the very same rare defect in the previous two months at Camp Lejeune. Federal health officials are now trying to contact parents of children either born or conceived at the base between 1968 and 1985. That could be as many as 16,000 families. Could it have affected others on the base -- adults and children?</s>WENDY KAYE, FEDERAL HEALTH OFFICIAL: There's always that possibility, but in-utero exposure is believed to be the most susceptible time period; and if we find a problem in that group then we may expand it to other groups.</s>CABELL: As for the Marines, they claim that until the early '80s, they and water officials weren't even monitoring wells for PCE and TCE. They didn't know better.</s>COL. MIKE LEHNERT, U.S. MARINE CORPS: The important thing to understand is what we knew and when we knew it and what type of guidelines were available to commanders at that time. We're convinced that the commanders that were working aboard that base at that time acted responsibly.</s>CABELL: The Marines say, once they discovered the problem in the early '80s, they told those living on base, but not former residents, and made little effort to do so until last year. Former Marine Charles Horney, whose family drank the contaminated water, hopes the Marines are telling the full truth.</s>CHARLES HORNEY, FORMER MARINE: I love the corps and I'll always be, you know, faithful to the corps but, you know, if -- what's wrong is wrong, you know, something needs to be done. They need to make it right.</s>CABELL: For EARTH MATTERS, I'm Brian Cabell.</s>PAWELSKI: Expect big protests in India over the coming months. The country has resumed work on a highly controversial dam project, after India's supreme court threw out an environmental lawsuit. Satinder Bindra reports.</s>SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the touch of a button, work has finally restarted on the controversial Sardar Sarovar project in western India. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is part of the Narmada Valley project, one of the world's largest river development schemes that plans to build more than 3,000 smaller dams across the river Narmada. Six years ago, India's supreme court stopped all work on the dam after activists expressed concern about environmental damage, they claim the project would swamp large tracts of land, displacing thousands. But two weeks after India's supreme court ruled the Sardar Sarovar Dam's height could be increased another five meters, pro- development forces are claiming victory.</s>LAL KRISHNA ADVANI, INDIAN HOME MINISTER (through translator): We will achieve development even while protecting the environment. This dam will protect the environment and will be a symbol of development.</s>BINDRA: But the controversy over the project is likely to continue. Environmentalists, who have in the past generated international headlines by staging hunger strikes and sit-ins, continue to describe the project as an "obsolete, money-guzzling technological disaster." Despite the supreme court ruling, anti-dam activists say they will fight on. Pro-development forces say the environmentalists are fighting a lost cause. They claim the project will ultimately irrigate some of India's driest areas, as well as provide drinking water and cheap electricity. The next stage in the ongoing controversy comes when environmentalists plan to stage huge demonstrations in India's capital, New Delhi. They say they'll also seek a review of the decision by the Supreme Court. For CNN EARTH MATTERS, I'm Satinder Bindra.</s>PAWELSKI: Up next on EARTH MATTERS, a fight over a dried-up wetland could change how environmental laws are enforced. And later, vampires that suck electricity instead of blood.