RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed a bill providing health benefits to Marines and family members exposed to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune from 1957 to 1987.

Obama said the United States has a sacred and moral duty to protect its men and women in uniform before signing the bill into law at an Oval Office ceremony Monday.

Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to tainted groundwater at the base.

The bill received bipartisan support as it passed last week.

Jerry Ensminger of Elizabethtown was at the White House. He led the fight for information about the water problems at Camp Lejeune since his daughter, Janey, died in 1985 at the age of 9 of a rare form of childhood leukemia.

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