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WILMINGTON, N.C. – An environmental contractor dramatically underreported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine base prepared for a federal health review, an Associated Press review has found.The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast, according to recently disclosed studies.For years, Marines who served at Camp Lejeune have blamed their families' cancers and other ailments on tap water tainted by dry cleaning solvents, and many accuse the military of covering it up. The benzene was discovered as part of a broader, ongoing probe into that contamination.....Picture Left:In a Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2009 photo, retired Marine Master Sgt.Jerry Ensminger with some of his documentation related to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, at his home in Elizabethtown, NC. Ensminger lost his 9-year-old daughter Janey, seen in photo at left, to leukemia and believes the government knowingly exposed military families to carcinogenic contaminates.(AP Photo/Logan Wallace)
