Radioactive pollution still haunts Hunters Point in San Francisco

San Francisco — More than a fractional period aft the U.S. ignited 67 atomic weapons successful the the cardinal Pacific Ocean, a erstwhile Navy basal successful the Bay Area continues to transportation that atomic legacy.

Last week, residents were informed by the San Francisco Department of Health that a trial taken successful November 2024 astatine the erstwhile tract of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard showed radiation levels of airborne Plutonium-239 had exceeded the Navy’s “action level,” requiring the subject to further investigate.

The metropolis and the residents were not informed until 11 months aft that archetypal reading.

Hunters Point, a 500-acre peninsula jutting retired into San Francisco Bay, served arsenic a subject laboratory to survey the effects of atomic weapons from 1946-69 pursuing World War II. Although the probe mostly focused connected however to decontaminate U.S. warships and instrumentality targeted with atomic bombs, the experimentation near overmuch of the shipyard laced with radioactive contaminants and toxic chemicals.

For the past 30 years, the Navy has sought to cleanable up the country — present a U.S. Superfund tract — with the semipermanent extremity of redeveloping it into caller lodging and parkland.

But immoderate Bay Area assemblage leaders accidental haphazard remediation enactment and lackluster nationalist outreach person endangered the wellness and information of residents of the Bayview-Hunters Point vicinity that sits beside the erstwhile shipyard. And they constituent to the Navy’s astir year-long hold successful informing them of the elevated Plutonium-239 reading, taken successful November 2024, arsenic conscionable the latest example.

Plutonium-239 is simply a radioactive isotope and byproduct of atomic weaponry explosions. The elevated readings from November 2024 came from a 78-acre tract of onshore connected the northeast information of the shipyard, known arsenic Parcel C.

“The City and County of San Francisco is profoundly acrophobic by some the magnitude of this exceedance and the nonaccomplishment to supply timely notification,” wrote San Francisco Health Officer Susan Philip successful an Oct. 30 missive to Navy officials. “Such a hold undermines our quality to safeguard nationalist wellness and support transparency. Immediate notification is simply a regulatory request and is captious for ensuring assemblage spot and safety.”

Navy officials and immoderate wellness experts importune the radiation levels detected astatine the site, portion supra the Navy’s enactment level, did not airs an imminent oregon important menace to nationalist health. Exposure to this level of Plutonium-239 each time for 1 twelvemonth would beryllium little than one-tenth the dose of radiation from a thorax X-ray, according to a Navy spokesperson.

“The San Francisco Department of Public Health’s missive references a azygous outlier aerial illustration that detected Plutonium-239 supra the regulatory enactment level,” a Navy spokesperson said successful a connection to The Times. “Regulatory enactment levels are deliberately and conservatively established beneath levels of wellness concern, and a azygous detection of Pu-239 astatine this level does not airs a hazard to quality wellness oregon nationalist safety.”

The Navy said it has collected much than 200 ambient aerial monitoring samples from Parcel C since it began performing fieldwork determination successful 2023. The November 2024 illustration was the lone speechmaking with elevated Plutonium-239, the Navy spokesperson told The Times.

Plutonium isotopes emit alpha radiation that is comparatively benign extracurricular the body, due to the fact that it cannot question done coagulated objects. However, if these radioactive particles are inhaled, they tin harm the lungs and summation the semipermanent hazard of processing definite cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“What we mostly are acrophobic astir for alpha emitters is if you get them into your body, and either done inhalation, ingestion, inadvertent injection — similar idiosyncratic gets a chopped and it gets into their body,” said Kathryn Higley, a prof of atomic subject astatine Oregon State University.

But it’s the deficiency of transparency and the 11-month hold successful reporting the speechmaking that has fomented assemblage mistrust and raised questions regarding the military’s competency to safely cleanable up the polluted shipyard. In 2000, the EPA admonished naval officials for neglecting to pass residents that a occurrence had breached retired astatine a hazardous landfill astatine Hunters Point. In 2017, 2 employees of the consulting steadfast Tetra Tech, who were hired by the Navy to measure radiation levels astatine Hunters Point, pleaded blameworthy to falsifying information successful an effort to debar having to execute further cleanup connected immoderate areas of the shipyard.

The beingness of radioactive aerial contaminants — astatine immoderate level — compounds the wellness risks of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, which already faces precocious vulnerability to toxic diesel particles from large rigs traveling connected adjacent freeways and cargo ships visiting the Port of San Francisco.

Hunters Point Biomonitoring Foundation, a section nonprofit, has recovered concerning levels of toxic substances successful urine screenings it has provided to respective residents of the neighborhood, particularly among older individuals and those surviving person to the erstwhile Naval shipyard.

“Now, you’re talking astir adding 1 of the astir devastating radionuclides known to the quality cardiopulmonary strategy to the chemic burden,” said Dr. Ahmisa Porter Sumchai, the foundation’s aesculapian manager and main investigator.

“The particulate load is capable to termination people,” Sumchai added. “But you adhd ... a small Plutonium-239, and it’s a look for death.”

Philip, the San Francisco wellness officer, said successful a connection that she met with Navy officials Oct. 31 and received assurances that aerial and particulate monitoring is “ongoing” and that the subject bureau is “reviewing their duct power methods to guarantee they are afloat protective of nationalist health.”

As a result, “no contiguous enactment is required from a nationalist wellness information standpoint,” she said, adding that her bureau volition proceed to intimately show the situation.

Other experts argued the concern was overblown. Phil Rutherford, a radiological hazard adept and firm consultant, called the delayed notification “unacceptable” but said the San Francisco wellness department’s missive was “a tempest successful a teacup” considering the debased levels of radioactive material.

Higley, the Oregon State professor, said the site’s agelong past of delays and scandals apt added to backlash from assemblage members. “I recognize [residents’] vexation that they privation to spot this spot cleaned up truthful that they tin safely usage it,” Higley said. “And there’s been a batch of reasons for wherefore this process takes truthful long. But, from a radiological perspective, the existent residual radioactivity astatine the tract is beauteous modest.”

In November 2024, a Navy contractor was grinding asphalt connected the tract — a operation task that, portion unrelated to the site’s humanities contamination, triggered the Navy to show for immoderate aerial prime issues. One of its aerial samplers, successful Parcel C — collected 8.16 times 10‐15 picocuries per milliliter of Plutonium-239 — doubly the established enactment level — according to a Navy spokesperson.

Navy officials sent the illustration to a laboratory for analysis, and the archetypal results came backmost successful March 2025, showing precocious radiation levels. In April, they ordered the laboratory to reanalyze the sample. In the follow-up analysis, radiation levels of Plutonium-239 were beneath enactment levels.

Between May and September, the Navy “further investigated the trial results and conducted a methodical reappraisal of the laboratory’s procedures and practices to guarantee they complied with standards,” according to the Navy spokesperson. “A 3rd enactment besides conducted an investigation of the lab’s performance.”

Later that September, the Navy told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and respective California authorities agencies astir the elevated airborne radiation from Plutonium-239, successful mentation for an upcoming assemblage meeting. That accusation aboriginal trickled down to the San Francisco wellness department.

At immoderate point, the Navy published immoderate aerial prime information for Parcel C gathered betwixt October and December 2024 connected a website wherever it curates respective biology monitoring reports. That study lone showed the little Plutonium-239 radiation levels from the reanalysis were beneath the enactment level.

A Navy spokesperson told The Times that it was “mistakenly uploaded.”

“As soon arsenic the Navy realized an incomplete study was uploaded, it was removed from the website,” the spokesperson said, portion the Navy worked to verify the results.

All that has contributed to the disorder and interest among locals and advocates alike. Navy officials are expected to be a Hunters Point Shipyard Citizens Advisory Committee Meeting connected Nov. 17.

When fieldwork is occurring astatine the shipyard, the Navy monitors for Plutonium-239 and respective different radioactive elements that whitethorn person resulted from historical fallout from atomic weapons testing.

Acquired by the Navy successful 1940, Hunters Point was initially a basal wherever ships were built, repaired and maintained during World War II. After the warfare ended, it became location to the Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory, a subject probe installation dedicated to investigating the effects of atomic weapons and radiological safety.

The Navy bombarded a fleet of U.S. warships with atomic weapons arsenic a portion of atomic investigating successful the Marshall Islands. The irradiated vessels were towed to Hunters Point, and utilized arsenic the worldly and hardware upon which scientists tested decontamination methods.

In 1974, the shipyard was deactivated. Hazardous chemicals and low-level radiological contamination were identified, prompting the U.S. EPA to spot the tract connected its Superfund database successful 1989.

The Navy has led cleanup efforts, excavating contaminated ungraded and demolishing buildings. A mostly residential parcel of the base, Parcel A, was turned implicit to San Francisco and has been redeveloped with caller municipality houses and condos. A corporate of 300 artists unrecorded and enactment successful erstwhile naval buildings.

But dangers proceed to look during ongoing remediation work.

In caller years, the Navy has recovered radioactive objects, including dials and platform markers coated with overgarment containing Radium isotopes to supply a glow-in-the-dark effect. Sumchai, aesculapian manager of the biomonitoring foundation, said she has observed ample stockpiles of contaminated ungraded held successful areas without immoderate protective fencing to forestall contaminants from spreading disconnected site.

“I presumption this arsenic a section nationalist wellness emergency,” Sumchai said. “I deliberation that everything should beryllium done to incorporate it and to region radical safely, if necessary, from documented areas of exposure.”

But to the casual perceiver the tract looks unremarkable.

Hunters Point juts retired into the San Francisco Bay conscionable northbound of wherever Candlestick Park, the erstwhile location of the San Francisco Giants and 49ers, utilized to stand. Beyond the abandoned barracks and drydocks, the tract is present mostly an bare expanse of writer and reeds, with an unobstructed presumption of the bay.

The cleanup sites, including Parcel C, are inactive fenced off, and lone those with authorized credentials are allowed onto the property.

On a caller weekday afternoon, ravens flew and cawed implicit the long-vacant shipyard buildings, portion operation crews and trucks ferried gathering instrumentality up and down Hill Drive — a steep roadworthy starring to marque caller homes lasting sentinel implicit the erstwhile shipyard.

And beyond waiting for a caller batch of Navy reports, determination was nary mode of knowing what’s successful the air.