TREASURE ISLAND
Treasure Island (and Hunter's Point) HistoryAccording to Da Costa, 95 percent of what we know as the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, like Treasure Island, is landfill. In the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, the Navy demolished two huge hills. That dirt expanded the shipyard.Navy policymaking was conducted at Treasure Island, the Navy’s official headquarters. Command staff enjoyed magnificent views of the City and the Bay from their homes on Yerba Buena Island, high above.
Engineers and scientists worked at Hunters Point, known for shipbuilding and experiments. During World War II, depleted uranium was first tested there. Prior to moving to Lawrence Livermore, the National Defense Lab was located at the shipyard, where Little Boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was assembled. Ships present at Bikini Island bomb tests returned to Hunters Point and Treasure Island. Sandblasting at Hunters Point sprayed much of the radioactive residue into the Bay and scattered it through shipyard soil. Da Costa describes “intense” and “serious” lab experiments and scientific tests. In close proximity to the seven-story National Defense Lab was the UCSF lab at Palou and Navy Road. The National Defense Laboratory, the UCSF Lab and Lawrence Livermore Labs collaborated on experiments. During World War II, the 10-story above-ground, four-story below-ground Naval Radiological Laboratory was used for testing and building bombs, missiles and other weapons. Canisters containing cesium and radium were transported through half- and quarter-mile underground tunnels. Large animals – horses, cows – were brought to the shipyard, experimented upon and tested, then their radioactive carcasses buried all over the shipyard. Da Costa reports that, in distinction to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, most of Treasure Island’s radioactive contamination came from spills. For example, aircraft carriers would jettison a spent capsule contaminated with nuclear fuel residue from the vessel onto the ground and into the water. In a Wednesday, May 13, 2013, meeting, Navy Environmental Coordinator Keith Forman told a worried Treasure Island resident about newly discovered radiation, “We didn’t know then what we know now.” Da Costa poo-pooed this lame excuse. “The Navy has never been truthful,” he said. “Everybody knows it.”
Da Costa recalled in the ‘50s, the Navy didn’t tell Bayview resident workers who were promised a month’s salary to bury the carcasses on overtime pay at night that the animal bodies had been subjected to radiological experiments. He reported people paid a month’s advance salary developed cancer after clenching radioactive canisters between their knees on aircraft bound for East Coast bases. 
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“I wouldn’t go there, I wouldn’t take my grandchildren there, I wouldn’t walk my dog there,” said Susan Andrews, a former radiation safety technician and, like Bowers, a whistleblower. . “It’s a beautiful area and it can be beautiful once it’s cleaned up, but it’s not being cleaned up right.”
At both Hunters Point and Treasure Island, apparently corners are being cut, and public health is at risk. In Nguyen’s earlier report, New World Environmental’s Don Wadsworth stated he was hired to survey Treasure Island’s radioactive areas. “My job is to protect people and the environment, and it’s just not getting done.”
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On Nov. 13 the San Francisco Chronicle ran a lead story written by the S.F.-based Center for Investigative Reporting.
The story was about the radioactive contamination of Treasure Island, a former U.S. Navy base in the middle of the Bay.
The story was about the radioactive contamination of Treasure Island, a former U.S. Navy base in the middle of the Bay.
This story is important in and of itself but also because it once again unearths the region’s role in the birth of the atomic age and also highlights the radioactive legacy that continues to haunt us.
The Chronicle article reported that 575 metal discs consisting of radioactive radium-226 had been found in the ground at Treasure Island as of 2011. The report did not mention that the radioactive life of radium-226 is millennia, over 16,000 years. The Navy has claimed that all its radioactive waste on the island had already been hauled away. In August 2012, RT News, a Russian English language news service, reported, “Navy contractors excavated and removed 16,000 yards of contaminated dirt, some with levels of radiation up to 400 times above the Environmental Protection Agency’s limit for human exposure.”
The Chronicle article reported that 575 metal discs consisting of radioactive radium-226 had been found in the ground at Treasure Island as of 2011. The report did not mention that the radioactive life of radium-226 is millennia, over 16,000 years. The Navy has claimed that all its radioactive waste on the island had already been hauled away. In August 2012, RT News, a Russian English language news service, reported, “Navy contractors excavated and removed 16,000 yards of contaminated dirt, some with levels of radiation up to 400 times above the Environmental Protection Agency’s limit for human exposure.”
And in September 2012 the East Bay Express reported, “Over the past five years, at least three shipments of extremely dangerous radioactive contamination – most of it from these metal disks – have been moved from Treasure Island to secure locations.” This radwaste was so hot that proximity to it for a few hours could kill you in a month. But where are these “secure” locations, and who’s going to keep an eye on it for the next 16,000 years? And what effect has it had on the health of the mostly low income tenants who have been living in former Navy housing on Treasure Island? Or the people who use its recreational facilities, such as Little League fields? The Center for Investigative Reporting article reported: “Every weekend, families from around the region flock to the baseball fields along Treasure Island’s eastern side for Little League games. Outfielder Cole Scott, 13, said fly balls have often sailed into fenced areas posted with radiation warning signs. And he said people just as often climbed over the fence to fetch them.” The Chronicle did not include the above passage in its Nov. 13 top story.
Where are these “secure” locations, and who’s going to keep an eye on it for the next 16,000 years? And what effect has it had on the health of the mostly low income tenants who have been living in former Navy housing on Treasure Island? So, where did all this hot stuff come from?
In October 2010, Calwatch.org provided the following information from a 2006 Navy report, “Treasure Island Historical Radiological Assessment” [That report is no longer online. The Navy’s Aug. 6, 2012, “Draft Historical Radiological Assessment Supplemental Technical Memorandum” updates it. – ed.]:
The Navy operated a training center on Treasure Island for the study of nuclear warfare and decontamination from the late 1940s up into the 1990s. “Part of the training involved the hiding of radioactive buttons around the training school, and then students armed with Geiger counters would try to find them.” Maybe the emphasis here should be on “try”?
In October 2010, Calwatch.org provided the following information from a 2006 Navy report, “Treasure Island Historical Radiological Assessment” [That report is no longer online. The Navy’s Aug. 6, 2012, “Draft Historical Radiological Assessment Supplemental Technical Memorandum” updates it. – ed.]:
The Navy operated a training center on Treasure Island for the study of nuclear warfare and decontamination from the late 1940s up into the 1990s. “Part of the training involved the hiding of radioactive buttons around the training school, and then students armed with Geiger counters would try to find them.” Maybe the emphasis here should be on “try”?
One school document listed “Radionuclides of Concern.” This included cesium-137, radium-226, thorium-232, strontium-90 and plutonium 239. All of these are potentially lethal, with long radioactive lives. They would be expected to appear after a nuclear weapon detonation, which the students were training to deal with. “[A]ll made an appearance at one time or another on the Treasure Island base,” Cal Watch member Anthony Pignataro reported.
In April 2013, Bay Citizen, a publication of the Center for Investigative Reporting, broke the news that it had found cesium-137 (radioactive life 300 years) on Treasure Island. Two of its reporters had taken soil samples from the site and sent them to two independent testing labs. Both labs found C-137 in the soil.
Bay Citizen also reported on the findings of an August 2012 Navy study of radwaste on Treasure Island. Among these was that for the “first time the Navy has fully acknowledged that the island, created from landfill in 1937, was used as a repair and salvage operation for a Pacific fleet exposed to atomic blasts during the Cold War.”
The most common way to decontaminate the nuked ships back then was to sandblast them, creating more radioactive waste in so doing. And so there are multiple ways Treasure Island could have become a nuclear hotspot.
On Nov. 27, 2013, two weeks after the Chronicle story, KTVU Channel 2 reported that low income residents of 24 units on Treasure Island, some of whom had lived there for more than a decade, had received a letter from San Francisco officials informing them that they would have to move soon.
The city plans to have luxury highrise housing built on Treasure Island. Only the continuing contamination and the remaining low income tenants are standing in the way.With soaring evictions in San Francisco another hot topic, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The letter, dated Nov. 25, was from Richard Beck, boss of the Treasure Island Development Authority.
Beck said their homes were contaminated, but that the eviction action was “not related to an ongoing radiological survey.” Supposedly the tenants could move to other housing units on the island. Becker claimed that six units, said to be contaminated with arsenic, “may have to be demolished.” The city plans to have luxury highrise housing built on Treasure Island. Only the continuing contamination and the remaining low income tenants are standing in the way.
In April 2013, Bay Citizen, a publication of the Center for Investigative Reporting, broke the news that it had found cesium-137 (radioactive life 300 years) on Treasure Island. Two of its reporters had taken soil samples from the site and sent them to two independent testing labs. Both labs found C-137 in the soil.
Bay Citizen also reported on the findings of an August 2012 Navy study of radwaste on Treasure Island. Among these was that for the “first time the Navy has fully acknowledged that the island, created from landfill in 1937, was used as a repair and salvage operation for a Pacific fleet exposed to atomic blasts during the Cold War.”
The most common way to decontaminate the nuked ships back then was to sandblast them, creating more radioactive waste in so doing. And so there are multiple ways Treasure Island could have become a nuclear hotspot.
On Nov. 27, 2013, two weeks after the Chronicle story, KTVU Channel 2 reported that low income residents of 24 units on Treasure Island, some of whom had lived there for more than a decade, had received a letter from San Francisco officials informing them that they would have to move soon.
The city plans to have luxury highrise housing built on Treasure Island. Only the continuing contamination and the remaining low income tenants are standing in the way.With soaring evictions in San Francisco another hot topic, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The letter, dated Nov. 25, was from Richard Beck, boss of the Treasure Island Development Authority.
Beck said their homes were contaminated, but that the eviction action was “not related to an ongoing radiological survey.” Supposedly the tenants could move to other housing units on the island. Becker claimed that six units, said to be contaminated with arsenic, “may have to be demolished.” The city plans to have luxury highrise housing built on Treasure Island. Only the continuing contamination and the remaining low income tenants are standing in the way.
