Will Camp Lejeune Water Project Get Trumped By Border Wall?

Proposed improvements and new construction on the physical border between the U.S. and Mexico have long been central to President Trump’s agenda — a plan that has drawn both support and condemnation. Now, reports have surfaced that funding for the wall could have an impact on a local water treatment plant with a history of contamination issues.

“President Donald Trump’s plans for the U.S.-Mexico border barrier may tap into unawarded funds that could have gone towards a water treatment plant at Camp Lejeune, a base near North Carolina’s coast that struggled with contaminated water for decades,” Business Insider reported. “Over $65 million was tentatively allocated for the water treatment plant at Hadnot Point… The project is expected to replace a water treatment plant with a 8-million-gallon-per-day water treatment facility.”

The report cited a fact sheet from the Department of Defense, which listed the Hadnot Point facility among a pool of military construction projects “from which funding could be reallocated to support the construction of border barrier.”

Of course, it remains unclear how much funding the border project will ultimately require, where that funding will come from, and whether or not this expected water treatment project will suffer because of it.

The upgrades were proposed as a result of increased water use and saltwater contamination at Hadnot Point, which is part of Camp Lejeune, and not connected to previous chemical contamination issues, per Business Insider. Even the potential for the treatment project to be interrupted may have some in the industry concerned, however, because Camp Lejeune has been such a lightning rod for water issues.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs has estimated that as many as 900,000 service members were potentially exposed to tainted water at the Marine base between 1953 and 1987,” according to an Associated Press report from earlier this year. “Documents uncovered by veterans groups over the years suggest Marine leaders were slow to respond when tests first found evidence of contaminated groundwater at Camp Lejeune in the early 1980s. Some drinking water wells were closed in 1984 and 1985, after further testing confirmed contamination from leaking fuel tanks and an off-base dry cleaner.”

And this isn’t the only area where funding cuts could affect federal water stewardship. President Trump’s recent budget proposal suggested a 31 percent cut to the U.S. EPA as part of fiscal year 2020, which may impact the perception, if not the effectiveness, of the administration’s environmental policy.