The DOJ has paid out more than $421 million since mid-January to a group of Camp Lejeune veterans and others poisoned by toxic water at the North Carolina marine base.
The payouts are part of a push from President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi to speed up payments to those harmed by tainted water at the base between 1953 and 1987.
“At the direction of the President and Attorney General, this Department of Justice has reprioritized approving settlements for Camp Lejeune victims and families, many of whom sadly had to wait years for justice,” said Stanley Woodward, associate attorney general at the Department of Justice, in a news release Tuesday.
The DOJ didn’t reply to an emailed request for comment.
The payments are part of a government program called the elective option, and only available to about 12% of the more than 400,000 people who have filed claims with the government.
Congress passed a bill in 2022 called the Camp Lejeune Justice Act to compensate veterans and others affected by the water, which caused cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Attorneys have said their clients have been dying as they wait for claims to be processed.
Still, the numbers are an improvement. About 650 offers worth $175 million were approved in the last three weeks out of a total of 2,531 offers the government has approved since the program was rolled out in 2023. A total of $708 million has been paid out under the elective option, the DOJ said.
The Congressional Budget Office has indicated the goverment’s total payout for Lejeune victims could be as high as $21 billion, but no global settlement has been reached.
Those whose claims are rejected or unresolved can sue the government in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. More than 3,700 lawsuits have been filed so far.
“I can’t argue with somebody who wants to do better. I encourage that. But for years and years and years, the government lied to these people. They covered up the pollution. People have died,” said J. Edward Bell III, a South Carolina attorney who leads a group of plaintiff lawyers overseeing the case. “And now they put out a press release bragging about what they’ve done in the last three weeks.”
Jerry Ensminger, a Lejeune veteran who lost his young daughter to leukemia, said those affected had to wait so long because of the government.
“I’ve have been fighting this issue for 29 years now, they tried to cover it up in the beginning and now they delay justice by filing motion after motion in the court forcing people to take their Elective Option because they are out of time,” he said in an email.
Settling more claims administratively could be one way to speed up payments, said Jessie Hoerman, the founder and CEO of SimplyConvert, a plaintiff’s database to verify Camp Lejeune claims.
“Expanding the EO would help,” Hoerman said. “The elective option covering 12% is not enough.”
