The US navy is covering up dangerous levels of radioactive waste on a 40-acre former shipyard parcel in San Francisco\u2019s waterside Hunters Point neighborhood, public health advocates charge.
The land is slated to be turned over to the city as early as next year, and could be used for residential redevelopment. The accusations stem from 2021 navy testing that found 23 samples from the property showed high levels of strontium-90, a radioactive isotope that replaces calcium in bones and causes cancer.
The Environmental Protection Agency raised alarm over the levels, but the navy in 2022 said its testing was inaccurate and produced a new set of data that showed levels of strontium-90 lower than zero, which was dismissed by environmental health experts as impossible.
The EPA initially said the new testing \u201creads as if the navy is suppressing data results it doesn\u2019t like\u201d, but the agency has since been silent on the issue, and the Navy\u2019s Office of Inspector General has refused to investigate, said Jeff Ruch, an attorney with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) nonprofit, which has called on the inspector general to investigate.
\u201cIt\u2019s like the navy doesn\u2019t care what they say, and we thought it was egregious enough that the IG should look at it,\u201d Ruch said. \u201cWithout any external examination, senior navy officials can lie to local officials and the public with impunity, knowing that there will be no negative career consequences.\u201d
The navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and in a letter to Peer, the inspector general wrote it would not open an investigation \u201cdue to the open ligation\u201d.
The 866-acre shipyard once held a secret navy research lab where animals were injected with strontium-90, and some officials suspect the waste was flushed down the drain. The isotope was also used to create glow-in-the-dark paint on the site, and it may have washed off ships used in testing nuclear bombs in the Pacific.
The US government in 1989 made the shipyard a \u201csuperfund\u201d site \u2013 a designation for the nation\u2019s most contaminated lands. Proposition P, passed by more than 86% of San Francisco voters in 2000, requires the shipyard \u201cbe cleaned to a level which would enable the unrestricted use of the property \u2013 the highest standard for cleanup established by the [EPA]\u201d.
However, the navy already turned over one parcel on the site, and residents living there say unremediated contamination is behind a cluster of cancer and other health problems.
Complicating the cleanup is rising sea and ground level waters, which threaten to pull the radioactive contamination into the adjacent bay.
The navy and US Department of Justice is now engaged in 12 lawsuits related to the site, and the DoJ, which is representing the navy, typically does not want inspector generals to do investigations because they could turn up information that complicates the government\u2019s cases, Ruch said.
\u201cThat means you have dysfunctional transactions taking place without any sort of review,\u201d he added.
Though the EPA initially raised alarm over the strontium-90 test results, it has been silent on the issue in recent months, and has not responded to a Peer Freedom of Information Act Request for emails related to the testing. In response, Peer has sued, asking a judge to order the emails to be turned over.
A 2022 memo sent to Peer from the EPA said the agency would rely on caps, or covering up the contaminated land with clean soil, and restrict property use, though that plan violates the provisions of Proposition P, Ruch said.
San Francisco mayor London Breed late last year praised the EPA and navy\u2019s cleanup effort, calling it \u201cextensive and thorough\u201d despite the outstanding questions and fears over rising sea levels. That drew condemnation from public health advocates and the San Francisco board of supervisors, which opened an investigation into the issues.
For now, it remains unclear which set of test results will guide the next steps.
\u201cGiven that this land is in queue to be turned over to the city, getting to the bottom of this would be helpful, but that would involve institutional candor which appears to be in short supply,\u201d Ruch said.
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