[CPEO-MEF] CLOSURE, RADIATION, CLIMATE: "US Navy Acknowledges Rising Toxic Groundwater Threat at [former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard]" CA

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

US Navy Acknowledges Rising Toxic Groundwater Threat at SF Superfund Site


By Ezra David Romero
KQED Public Media (San Francisco, CA)
March 7, 2024

The U.S. Navy, for the first time, has acknowledged what Bay Area climate scientists and residents have asked the agency to look into for years: that in just over a decade, potentially toxic groundwater could surface at a San Francisco Superfund site partly because of human-caused climate change.

Every five years, the agency reviews the cleanup of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard next to the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. The agency studied how climate effects — sea-level rise, groundwater rise and storm surge — could impact the cleanup of one of the nation’s largest and most complicated Superfund sites. The Navy finished the review in November and released it to the public in late January. The details of the climate review were buried deep in a 566-page document, and KQED is reporting on them for the first time. 

The Navy found that in 2035, contaminated groundwater from heavy metals and “low-level radiological objects” — steeping in the water like a tea bag — could surface in an area of the site called “Parcel D-1,” which the Navy used for ship repair, maintenance and radiological research. The Navy capped this area with asphalt to keep any remaining pollution underground.

…

For the entire story, see
https://www.kqed.org/science/1991758/u-s-navy-acknowledges-rising-toxic-groundwater-threat-at-sf-superfund-site

—

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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