Civilian Exposure (Camp Lejeune)

Toxic-exposure awareness nonprofit · Founded 2013 by Gavin P. Smith, in memory of his father, a civilian Camp Lejeune worker who died of acute leukemia in 2008

Built by the son of a civilian Camp Lejeune worker who died of acute leukemia, Civilian Exposure documents toxic contamination at Camp Lejeune and then base after base beyond it — Superfund histories, PFAS, and the studies families need. An honest note on cadence: the site is live today but its newest post is dated January 2, 2024, so treat it as a deep archive rather than a news feed. For a family tracing an exposure, the archive is the value.

Why we carry them. The civilians were exposed too — this is the record built specifically for the workers and families the uniform-focused coverage forgets.

Start here — their essential work

• Donaldson Air Force Base, Greenville SC (2024-01-02) — The site’s most recent base profile: a South Carolina base closed in 1963 whose contamination story outlived the base itself.
• Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton CA (2023-03-05) — The 125,000-acre California base profile — also the comparison site in the federal study of Lejeune civilian-worker deaths.
• Patuxent River Naval Air Station Patuxent River MD (2023-03-03) — A Maryland naval air station that kept expanding while its contamination footprint grew with it.
• The Proliferation of Government Environmental Negligence: At Home and Abroad — Its signature editorial: Lejeune, Flint, Pease, and McGuire as one pattern — agencies that knew, delayed, and minimized while people kept drinking the water.
• Senator Burr Works to Adjust the Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 — On extending Lejeune health-care eligibility back to 1953, after federal scientists confirmed contamination reached safe-level limits years earlier than first admitted.
• Carteret County native honors father with nonprofit dedicated to toxic exposure — The founder’s story as reported in his hometown paper: a father’s 25 years of civilian work at Lejeune, his leukemia death, and the organization built from it.

Summaries are ours. The work is theirs — we link to it, we don’t lift it. Visit Civilian Exposure (Camp Lejeune) →