SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice sued the U.S. Navy and the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday over what they claim is mismanagement of the cleanup of radioactive waste at Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco.
Hunter’s Point, in the city’s Bayview neighborhood, was operated by the Navy between 1945 and 1974. While under military operation, the site was home to radiation experiments from 1946 to 1969. Ships returning from hydrogen bomb tests were also decontaminated at the site, furthering the risk of radioactive contamination.
Greenaction claims in its 59-page complaint that the Navy and the EPA violated the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the National Contingency Plan, and other violations because the EPA has failed to enforce its cleanup agreement of Hunter’s Point with California and the Navy.
Greenaction claims the Navy has also missed key deadlines for reviewing work plans on the site. The EPA oversees the Navy’s cleanup efforts of the site, which is being redeveloped for housing.
Greenaction seeks to force the Navy to honor a 2018 agreement to retest decontamination work that was completed by its former contractor, Tetra Tech EC. Tetra Tech was sued by the feds in 2018 after whistleblower complaints accused the contractor of falsifying soil tests that were supposed to verify the decontamination of a 400-acre site where more than 10,000 homes are slated to be built in one of the largest redevelopment projects in San Francisco history.
Homeowners at the former shipyard site won a $6.3 million settlement in 2021 on claims that developers failed to warn home buyers about revelations surrounding the $1 billion cleanup of the Hunters Point shipyard.
The fallout from the scandal led the Navy to launch a retesting program to ensure that areas that Tetra Tech tested are free from contamination, which is roughly one-third of the shipyard.
As part of that agreement, the Navy promised to retest the remaining two-thirds of the shipyard if any residual contamination was found. Greenaction says that the Navy reneged on that promise because radioactive objects have been found at the site, and is seeking an injunction that would force the Navy to verify all of the cleanup work at Hunter’s Point and to conduct new assessments on the site.
“The nature and extent of the Tetra Tech EC fraud means that previously uncontaminated areas may have become contaminated. It also means that a complete and accurate understanding of the nature and extent of contamination throughout the site remains unknown. Accordingly, 100% site characterization must be redone,” Greenaction says in its suit. Tetra Tech EC is not a party to the current action.
In addition to the injunction, Greenaction seeks an order forcing the Navy and EPA to adopt new remedial goals for the cleanup of the site that considers climate change, sea level rise and groundwater rise projections as it evaluates the cleanup. Current evaluation goals were last updated in 2006, according to Greenaction, and are out of date.
“The remedial goals at HPNS were improperly proposed by the Navy and approved by EPA in 2006. EPA apparently recognized its error and has since insisted the Navy update its remedial goals to reflect modern standards. The Navy has not done as EPA asked. As a result, the Navy’s improper 2006 decision continues to corrupt the cleanup in 2024,” Greenation says in its complaint.
Greenaction announced its intent to sue the Navy and the EPA in December over their inability to adopt new remedies to manage the cleanup of the site. The group is represented by Steven Castleman and Claudia Polsky with Berkeley Law Environmental Law Clinic, and by Michael Lozeau of Lozeau Drury in Oakland, California.
The EPA and the Navy did not respond to requests for comment before press time.
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