Tag: U.S Navy

“I’m angry about that because I would never have moved to Treasure Island if they had told me there was radiation (there). I didn’t know what was happening to me until I got these tumors (one) on my shoulder and one on my side.”

On Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, a press conference was held in front of San Francisco Superior Court, at 400 McAllister, at which San Francisco Attorney Stanley Goff and lead plaintiffs and former Treasure Island residents Andre Patterson and Felita Sample publicly announced a “class action lawsuit and complaint for damages,” arising from public and private exposure to toxins on Treasure Island.

The UC committee finds the recent surface radiation testing at the Hunters Point Shipyard sufficient and calls for “an informational meeting with the residents of Parcel A to discuss the cost and benefits of further radiation testing of the parcel.” Supervisor Shamann Walton has called a public meeting for Tuesday, Jan. 28, 7 p.m., at 451 Galvez Ave., the Storehouse at the Shipyard. All residents are urged to attend.

The deep dark dirty development of the federal Superfund site at the Hunters Point Shipyard is not stalled. It is simply catnapping as government agencies, working on behalf of Lennar, strategize for the residential development of the MUD of Parcel G.

At the March 2018 Treasure Island Restoration Advisory Board meeting, remediation project manager Dave Clark “recollected” that, between 2006 and 2016, the Navy unearthed 1,280 radiological objects, one for every two residents. By contrast, on Sept. 13, San Francisco Chronicle reporters announced the “startling” discovery at Hunters Point of a single “radium deck marker about the size of a silver dollar” near condos on 75-acre Parcel A, which was transferred to the city in 2004 – startling because “contamination ... was cleaned up years ago.”

The U.S. Navy had its annual dog and pony show at the Treasure Island Restoration Advisory Board meeting on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. The previous meeting included a Tetra Tech representative and a loud confrontation, but this time Tetra Tech representatives were not on the panel since there are now two Tetra Tech managers in federal prison for falsifying the cleanup records at Hunters Point and an ongoing grand jury investigation with likely more sealed indictments.

At 11:00 a.m. Monday, April 16, 2018, community organizer Steve Zeltzer introduced former Treasure Island residents Andre Patterson and Felita Sample, who had been invited to speak at this press conference where whistle-blowers exposed the malfeasance of remediation contractor Tetra Tech on Hunters Point and Treasure Island. “I want to introduce two people today who’ve been personally affected by the corruption and the coverup at Treasure Island."

On Monday, April 16, at 11 a.m. at the U.S. Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate Ave. in San Francisco, United Public Workers for Action and concerned citizens will hold a press conference calling on San Francisco’s U.S. Attorney to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who have refused to investigate the massive $1 billion fraud by the Navy and Tetra Tech in their botched and faked cleanups of both Hunters Point and Treasure Island.

For both armed and unarmed combat, the United States military is unparalleled in the world. So, when the U.S. Navy points the finger for its bungled Hunters Point cleanup at Tetra Tech to deflect from its own liability, it’s a carefully thought-out advance strategy that has worked for decades on contaminated Naval bases around the globe.

At a press conference Thursday, June 29, at noon in front of the Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund site in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco, many former employees of Tetra Tech and their subcontractors joined together for the first time in the most damning expose to date of the scandal-plagued radioactive contamination “cleanup.” The U.S. Navy contracted with Tetra Tech EC, Inc., to assist in the radiological cleanup of the Shipyard, a National Priorities List Superfund site.

My name is Felita Sample. My mysterious illnesses and my daughter LaKrista’s strange afflictions developed after we moved from San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to Treasure Island. Imagine never-ending nausea and daily dizziness. You can’t tolerate the thought of food. You override this loathing and force yourself to eat. You soon find that anything edible, including water, triggers dry heaves that wrack your chest and abdomen.

When The John Stewart Co., which functions as Treasure Island property management, got wind of this San Francisco Bay View news story exposing an employee for illegally bullying and attempting to break in on a subsidized tenant, the company hired the San Francisco-based Zanghi law firm to threaten the publisher, editor and reporter with a cease and desist letter. Read their letter and our response.

After LaKrista and I were manipulated into moving onto Treasure Island, we discovered it was toxic and was making us sick. So we decided to tell the world. I experienced no ill health and had never been hospitalized until, in 2004, I moved to Treasure Island. Soon, my young daughter LaKrista and I manifested similar strange symptoms. Years later, I put two and two together. I learned that neighbors on my block suffered the same illnesses as LaKrista and I.

In response to the escalating community outcry over the falsification of radioactive soil samples and concerns about reports of possible illegal dumping of radioactive soils by the U.S. Navy’s contractor Tetra Tech at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California Department of Toxic Substances Control and the U.S. Navy have agreed to put on hold any further transfers of Navy property at the Shipyard.

Four brave Treasure Islanders who've spoken out about the radiation and other toxins sickening residents have learned they face swift retaliation engineered by the powers-that-be. Mitchell Herrington lived on Treasure Island from 1999 to 2013, when he was harassed off the island by eviction. During his tenancy, Mitchell lived with a roommate who worked for Shaw Environmental. The fact that this Shaw employee had to be protected by a hooded hazmat suit suggested the serious danger of contamination present in his cleanup zone work.

The truth about the radiation and chemicals that poison Treasure Island has been deliberately hidden from view since 1941, when the Navy began using the island as a trash dump. To conceal the extent of the toxicity and the poisoning of many sailors and civilians, recent plans to redevelop the island have required powerful players to shroud activities there in an even thicker fog than the mist that daily crawls under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Lennar’s track record in Bayview Hunters Point and on Yerba Buena Island clearly demonstrates a pattern of offering assurances they will provide poor, Black and Brown people affordable housing, then finding ways to renege on their promises and kicking them out. Join the protest by residents of Bayview Hunters Point, the Mission and Treasure Island at Lennar’s sales office at 645 Howard St., between Second and Third in downtown San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 28, at noon, for a rally and a quick march to US EPA headquarters.

The New York Times sent Gary Rivlin to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, days after the storm, to cover Katrina as an outsider. Rivlin’s instincts had him looking forward “to the mess ahead. Eventually the flood waters would recede. How would New Orleans go about the complicated task of rebuilding?” This carefully researched, beautifully written book describes that process from then until now.

To: Lily Lee, Cleanup Project Manager, Superfund Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 - I wish to submit the following comments regarding human health and safety concerns stemming from the proposed transfer of HPNS (Hunters Point Naval Shipyard) Parcels D2, UC1, UC2 and associated buildings 813, 819, 823 and IR 50 storm drains and sanitary sewer lines.

A cleanup worker at the decommissioned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in southeast San Francisco is facing a rare life threatening cancer he believes is caused by his exposure to known toxins at the federal Superfund site. Diagnosed with a Peripheral T Cell Lymphoma, an aggressive high grade lymphoid malignancy with a five year survival rate of 32 percent, the worker has retained the high powered New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg.