As you drive through the neighborhoods surrounding the former Kelly Air Force Base in Texas, you will notice small purple crosses planted in front lawns. The crosses mark the homes of cancer victims. The people who live in these neighborhoods call where they live the toxic triangle. They believe they have been poisoned by the industrial solvent, trichloroethylene, or TCE, that was dumped at the base for decades and subsequently spread for miles through a shallow aquifer under the 22,000 nearby houses.

The local health authorities admit they have found evidence of increased rates of liver cancer and birth defects for the residents of these neighborhoods, but state it is impossible to say that TCE is the cause. The residents are absolutely certain TCE is the cause of the cancers that plague the people who live there. And this same fate is playing out all over the country, in other cities that are home to military bases, industrial plants, nuclear weapons laboratories and NASA centers.

According to the reporting on this issue by the Los Angeles Times, "Scientists representing major polluters, particularly the Department of Defense, have successfully delayed action on scientific assessments that TCE is a far graver threat to public health than recognized by federal standards. When the Environmental Protection Agency drafted a TCE assessment in 2001, finding that it was far more toxic than originally believed, the issue was wrested from the EPA's control." A panel of elite scientists organized by the National Academy of Sciences will issue a report this summer that is supposed to shape government policy on TCE. No matter which way this report leans, the two sides are not going to go quietly into the night.

The Few, The Proud, and The Forgotten, was set up by Jerry Ensminger, a former Marine drill sergeant, whose daughter, Janey, died of leukemia at age 9, to force the Marine Corps to notify tens of thousands of Marines, their families and civilian employees exposed to TCE. Ensminger is working to ensure the right-to-know for the residents, Marines/Naval personnel, dependent family members and civilians who resided in military base housing exposed to long term chemical release of volatile organic compounds into the drinking water of their homes from 1958 until 1985. To read more examples, I refer you to the Los Angeles Times investigative story called, Cancer Stalks Toxic Triangle, by Ralph Vartabedian. They need an Erin Brockovich.