CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) – The Department of Veterans Affairs is proposing making more people eligible to receive disability benefits if they were exposed to contaminated drinking water while assigned to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

A statement from the department on Thursday said VA Secretary Robert McDonald decided on the proposal following talks with environmental health experts.

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McDonald’s proposal would also expand benefits eligibility to Reserve and National Guard personnel who served at Camp Lejeune from Aug. 1, 1953, through Dec. 31, 1987. They would be presumed to have been exposed.

Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to tainted water between the 1950s and when drinking water wells at the Marine base were closed in the 1980s. The wells were contaminated by leaking fuel tanks and an off-base dry cleaner.

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