Ensminger: “largest polluter”
NEWBURGH – The Campaign for Water Protection in Newburgh heard from retired Marine Jerry Ensminger on Saturday about his ongoing fight with the Department of Defense over water contamination at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and what they can expect when dealing with the feds over water issues.
In the spring of last year, Newburgh’s main reservoir was turned off because of the discovery of carcinogenic PFOS. Since then, city residents have been drinking New York City Catskill Aqueduct water.
Ensminger lost his nine-year-old daughter from exposure to Camp Lejeune water and his 20-year battle with the DoD resulted in the creation of the 2012 Janey Ensminger Act that mandates medical care be given to the estimated more than one million individuals affected by exposure from water contamination at Camp Lejeune.
Ensminger found that it is not so easy to get the DoD to take responsibility.
“You are fighting the same opponent and when you are trying to hold the United States Department of Defense accountable for what they do, you have a hell of a fight on your hands,” he said.
In the case of Camp Lejeune, Ensminger said the water contamination had gone unchecked for some 30 years, and for some of that time the contamination was acknowledged by the DoD, but they never acted upon it.
Ensminger said Newburgh residents might be surprised by the amount of pollution occurrences the DoD is responsible for across the country.
“Our nation’s largest polluter is not Dow Chemical. It’s not Monsanto. It’s not DuPont. It’s not Exxon Mobil. It is the United States Department of Defense. The U.S. Department of Defense is our nation’s largest polluter. They have more superfund sites than any of those other entities that I just named, and superfund sites are the worst, of the worst, contamination sites in our country.”
Assemblyman Frank Skartados (D, Milton), who has been working alongside other Newburgh representatives to battle the PFOS contamination issue, said he hopes that the DOD will begin taking financial responsibility for the damages incurred in Newburgh sooner, rather than later.
“We already have the State of New York for almost a year now paying $125,000 a month, for example, to supply clean water from the aqueduct to the people of Newburgh,” Skartados said.
Along with that expense the state has been footing the bill for blood testing and filtration infrastructure.
“We want to recoup that,” Skartados said. “The federal government has a responsibility; they should accept the fact that they are culpable for what has happened here and they should do the right thing.”
Ensiminger’s advice to the people of Newburgh was that, “Nobody is going to fight this for them. They’re going to have to fight it themselves and they need to get organized, and they do not need to accept ‘no’ for an answer and to get their politicians involved.”
