Washington (CNN) Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer announced Thursday that the Department of the Navy will deny all remaining civil claims made by people who were exposed to contaminated drinking water at a major US Marine Corps base, a decision that will affect some 4,400 claimants.

The claims allege personal injury or wrongful death resulting from exposure to hazardous chemicals from the 1950s to the 1980s that were accidentally introduced into drinking wells located at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, a major base that houses thousands of US Marines, their families and support staff.

The Navy said that the amount of money requested by each claimant varied significantly but that the total amount claimed by all claimants was approximately $963 billion, including a single claim for $900 billion.

The contaminants, which included industrial chemicals that were used to clean equipment, solvents for weapons and some solvents found in fuels, have been linked to some types of cancer, birth defects and other health problems.

Spencer said that the decision to deny the claims was made in large part due to a court decision made in December 2016 by the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia that found that similar claims against the US government were not exempted from the principle of sovereign immunity, which restricts the type of law suits that can be brought against the government.

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