[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION, REUSE: "Public health advocates say land at Hunters Point in San Francisco [CA] contains dangerous levels of strontium-90"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

US navy accused of cover-up over radioactive shipyard waste
Public health advocates say land at Hunters Point in San Francisco contains dangerous levels of strontium-90

By Tom Perkins
Guardian
June 25, 2023

The US navy is covering up dangerous levels of radioactive waste on a 40-acre former shipyard parcel in San Francisco’s 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 “reads as if the navy is suppressing data results it doesn’t like”, but the agency has since been silent on the issue, and the Navy’s 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.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/25/us-navy-accused-radiocative-shipyard-waste


—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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