A plan is needed to help military personnel and their families who are suffering health problems because of contaminated drinking water at a North Carolina Marine base, the state's senators said Tuesday.

Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said a report issued by the National Research Council downplayed some chemicals found in the base water and ignored studies that linked compounds to health problems.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., joined Hagan in raising questions. Hagan and Burr are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Burr is the ranking member of the Veterans Affairs Committee.

"I remain deeply concerned that this recent report ... still raises more questions than it answers," Burr said. "I am continuing to press the Department of the Navy for a resolution to this issue because veterans and their families have waited long enough."

A spokeswoman for the council said the panel had no comment.

Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to chemicals before the wells were closed more than 20 years ago.

A retired Marine master sergeant who lived at the base and whose daughter died at age 9 from cancer applauded the call for hearings.

"If any issue warrants such a hearing it should be this one," said Jerry Ensminger, who has followed the study process closely.

The report released Saturday by the council said there was evidence people who lived and worked at Camp Lejeune in eastern North Carolina between the 1950s and 1985 were exposed to the industrial solvents tricholorethylene (TCE) or perchloroethylene (PCE) through tainted well water.

The 341-page report also said there were severe scientific barriers to connecting contaminants to any birth defects, cancer and many other ailments suffered by people who lived and worked on base. The study reviewed past reports on the base's water and health issues.

Hagan said the NRC report "failed to take into account the conclusions of previous epidemiological studies that found an association between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) exposures and childhood leukemia, and presents some direct contradictions to the EPA's maximum containment levels of VOCs in drinking water."

Hagan said she couldn't support the report, in part because it left out earlier studies that showed high levels of the chemical benzene as well as evidence of fuel in a well.

"The time has come for Congress, the Department of the Navy and the Marine Corps to work together to develop a plan to resolve the long-standing issue of water contamination at Camp Lejeune," Hagan said. "We already know that exposure to VOCs in drinking water is linked to adverse health effects."

She said an ongoing study of water by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry shouldn't stop action by the government to resolve the matter.

Hagan and Burr sent a letter last week to the Navy asking if officials knew chemicals, including benzene and vinyl chloride, were in the base water before wells were shut down. The senators plan to meet with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus before August.