[Podcast] A Community of Color Contends With the Navy’s #Toxic Legacy

Decades after the Navy shuttered a #ColdWar #radiation research lab, the mess hasn’t been completely cleaned up. Listen to local voices demanding accountability amid charges of #EnvironmentalRacism.

By Rebecca Bowe, 11.25.2024

"The San Francisco Public Press presents the first half of a two-part radio documentary, '#Exposed,' opening a window into the little-known history of the #HuntersPointNavalShipyard. The sprawling abandoned naval base, in #SanFrancisco’s southeast waterfront #Bayview neighborhood, is currently the site of the city’s largest real estate development project. The base played a key role in the Cold War nuclear era, when it housed a research institution known as the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory [#NRDL], which studied the human health effects of #radiation.

"In Episode 1 of the podcast, we trace the radioactive contamination found in the shipyard soil today back to its origins, with #NuclearBomb testing in the #MarshallIslands. We also hear from #EnvironmentalJustice advocates, including one who led a health biomonitoring survey revealing that nearby residents have toxic elements stored in body tissues that match the hazardous chemicals of concern identified at the shipyard.

"This radio documentary is part of a larger multimedia package stemming from a deep dive into declassified government records produced by the radiation lab in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. Listen to Episode 2 of the podcast: 'Why the Navy Conducted Radiation Experiments on Humans.'"

https://www.sfpublicpress.org/exposed-podcast-episode-1-a-community-of-color-contends-with-the-navys-toxic-legacy/
#NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWar #NuclearWeapons #RadiationExposure #ColdWarExperiments #HuntersPoint

"Rarely seen documents show a Cold War atomic research facility headquartered at #HuntersPoint conducted studies that exposed at least 1,073 people to potentially harmful #radiation The legacy of that era is a continuing risk to public health". https://www.sfpublicpress.org/exposed-part-1-how-a-san-francisco-navy-lab-became-a-hub-for-human-radiation-experiments/

UCSF workers at a facility at the former #HuntersPoint shipyard attempting to get health compensation after contractors testing for hazardous pleased guilty to providing fraudulent toxicity samples to the #Navy. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/shipyard-ucsf-radiation-19566083.php

This was a self-inflicted contamination after the 1946 Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll:

"Navy faces lawsuit over stalled $1.2bn clean-up of San Francisco shipyard filled with radioactive waste"

#HuntersPoint #SF #NuclearTesting @sts

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/navy-shipyard-san-francisco-lawsuit-b2570950.html

The 59th street bridge #newyork #nyc #hunterspoint #longislandcity

Spoiler alert: when they couldn't decontaminate the ships, they scuttled them at the Farallon Islands where they sit on the bottom of the Pacific until this day.

#SF #HuntersPoint #ColdWar #RMI #FarallonIslands

Hunter's Point is contaminated because that is where the US Navy tried to "decontaminate" ships irradiated at nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946

"San Francisco artists maintain a creative haven for 40 years—at a radioactive site"

#SF #HuntersPoint #ColdWar #RMI

https://sfstandard.com/2024/04/27/san-francisco-hunters-point-shipyard-artists/

#MarshMadness #HuntersPoint #IndiaBasin

The Navy has finally acknowledged what scientists and residents have suspected for years: that toxic groundwater could surface at the Hunters Point Superfund site in SF.

The soil at Hunters Point is contaminated with radioactive material and other toxic substances. That the site could flood from the ground up is terrifying, to say the least!
https://www.kqed.org/science/1991758/u-s-navy-acknowledges-rising-toxic-groundwater-threat-at-sf-superfund-site #sanfrancisco #sf #hunterspoint #BayviewHuntersPoint #bayviewSF #waterpollution #sfbay #sanfranciscobay

“Sunken Radioactive WWII Ship Rediscovered In Ocean Near Farallon Islands”

3/3

#Farallon #OperationCrossroads #BikiniAtoll #RMI #nuclear #ColdWar #HuntersPoint #SF #NuclearTesting

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/radioactive-ww-ii-ship-rediscovered-in-ocean-near-farallon-islands/

Most of this material is from attempts to “decontaminate" ships irradiated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946. You may have seen images of the navy ships beneath the low hanging mushroom cloud. The US Navy towed many of these ships to the Bay Area and one by one tried to decontaminate them at Hunter's Point. They failed to decontaminate them, but succeeded in contaminating the shipyard.

They later sunk the irradiated ships at the #Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco, which is now the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

2/3

#OperationCrossroads #BikiniAtoll #RMI

#nuclear #ColdWar #HuntersPoint #SF #NuclearTesting

"Radioactive Objects Found at San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Raise New Concerns"

"The discoveries raise fresh questions about the city’s plans to build thousands of homes on one of the nation’s largest and most polluted Superfund sites amid ongoing cleanup efforts."

1/3

#nuclear #ColdWar #HuntersPoint #SF #NuclearTesting

https://www.kqed.org/science/1985646/radioactive-object-found-at-san-franciscos-hunters-point-naval-shipyard-raises-new-concerns

"The US navy is covering up dangerous levels of #radioactive waste on a 40-acre former shipyard parcel in #SanFrancisco’s...#HuntersPoint neighborhood...

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’s cases..."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/25/us-navy-accused-radiocative-shipyard-waste

"The EPA initially said the new testing “reads as if the navy is suppressing data results it doesn’t like”. #Hunterspoint #strontium90 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/25/us-navy-accused-radiocative-shipyard-waste

Radiological contamination in the Bay Area

"Fresh concerns raised about the cleanup of Hunters Point Shipyard"

"On Thursday, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a Bay Area-based nonprofit, filed a complaint to the Navy’s Inspector General demanding an investigation of the Navy’s analysis of #radioactive waste found at the site. PEER contends the Navy has consistently downplayed the risks posed by its findings and misled the public about potential harms.

The shipyard, a 900-acre Superfund site that once hosted a #radiological defense laboratory, has come under increasing scrutiny after the Navy reported that it found radioactive material on one of the parcels last October, with 10% of samples testing above EPA-approved screening levels. The material, Strontium-90, is a radioactive isotope that causes cancer and other health hazards."

@histodons @sts #nuclear #NuclearTest #SF #BayArea #HuntersPoint

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/more-concerns-raised-about-hunters-point-shipyard-cleanup/article_129b260a-d576-11ed-9abd-3346d524c5b2.html

One fun thing about living in the rapidly developing #hunterspoint section of #longislandcity has been watching an area often described as "soulless" get infused with the soul of #queens. #nyc

What has happened at San Francisco's #HuntersPoint Shipyard with #toxic materials over the years is deserving of intense investigative reporting. This 4 part series, funded by USC, is trying to do that and you should follow it. https://48hills.org/2023/03/the-tragic-toxic-legacy-of-the-hunters-point-naval-shipyard/

There's so much constant construction of new #housing in the #HuntersPoint part of #LIC that this breakfast cart follows the crews from job to job.

#nyc

“The one part of the 490-acre shipyard that seems immune to change: The #HuntersPoint crane and its [burrito]-launching arch.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/vault/article/hunters-point-crane-nuclear-secret-17791233.php by @PeterHartlaub #SanFrancisco #USNavy #History #BurritoRailgun