Tag: U.S Navy

The Girls and Boys Club departure is sobering for island parents. It establishes that a venerable organization refuses to participate in exposing young people – their children – to radioactive and chemical poisons it knows to a certainty exist at its former site. What if Job Corps and the other small island businesses employing many young people followed suit?

The City of San Francisco appears to be launching a discriminatory retaliatory eviction targeting its Treasure Island toxin whistleblower, Kathryn Lundgren, and her family. Lundgren, mother of three teens, has repeatedly sounded the alarm outing the City and the Navy for collusion in neglecting to warn her and her unsuspecting neighbors that Treasure Island is a radioactive dumpsite saturated with chemicals, toxic mold, asbestos and lead.

Situated at Treasure Island’s northwest corner on Site 12, Halyburton Court consists of a small cluster of vacant 24-unit apartment buildings that, from the 1970s to 1996, housed military families. Considering all possible contamination sources, it is noteworthy that from 1957 to 1969, before Halyburton Court was built, the Navy operated a radiological training school just south along the perimeter facing San Francisco.

Think of Treasure Island as an iridescent green glowing ghost ship whose prow divides the blue waves as it navigates San Francisco Bay waters gliding northwest under the Golden Gate Bridge. On the tidy front lawn of your market rate or low income Site 12 rental brought to you courtesy of The John Stewart Co., it is as if you are standing at the bow of the radioactive vessel as it carries its toxic contents ever forward into a stunning red-gold sunset.

On March 24, following years of monthly RAB meetings with a skeptical Treasure Island community, the Navy announced “a radiological finding beneath a non-leased housing unit” and will “conduct radiological surveys of all the units under lease within Site 12 at the former Naval Station Treasure Island.” Supervisor Kim asks: “What is the Navy’s commitment and contribution ... to ensure that (current residents) have a safe place to live? Moreover, are there any health concerns living here on the island while the survey is being conducted?”

Since the early ‘90s, the Navy has been locating and “remediating” radioactive hot spots from Treasure Island. But it wasn’t until two weeks ago, Feb. 12, 2014, that Kathryn Lundgren learned of the presence of a toxic former burn pit buried next to her home. It was never revealed by Navy officials in any monthly Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) meeting.

Before beginning construction on Treasure Island’s massive high rise project, the Navy is committed to “restoration.” It must test the soil to locate “hot” or “radioactive spots” and what it terms “hot commodities.” “Hot commodities” are radioactive objects the Navy left behind during World War II that rendered the surrounding soil radioactive and dangerous to life.

One Treasure Island resident suspects that her mother’s mysterious death, her children’s strange maladies and her husband’s cardiac event are attributable to at least 14 radioactive elements, a minimum of 26 chemical contaminants and other pollutants deposited in soil after 1941, when the Navy commandeered the island during World War II.

Due to San Francisco’s housing crunch, Treasure Island became a repository for low-income families and people at risk of homelessness. Consequently, the Navy’s ad nauseam public reassurances to largely poor and people of color at Treasure Island that no dangerous levels of radioactivity now exist imparts a suspicious race and class taint to its minimizations and denials.

Let’s not be too quick to dismiss the “ranting” of renegade LAPD officer Chris Dorner. Dorner, a three-year police veteran and former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy who went rogue after being fired by the LAPD, has accused Los Angeles police of systematically using excessive force, of corruption, of being racist and of firing him for raising those issues through official channels.

Contrary to Mayor Ed Lee’s claim in a press release issued yesterday by the Mayor’s Office, the Superior Court issued an important victory for Bayview environmental health advocates by blocking the proposed early transfer of the toxic parcels of the Hunters Point Superfund site.

In the CIA kick-started war on Libya, The New York Times report Monday by John F. Burns, calling Libyan civilian casualties “propaganda,” does not square with a series of WBAIX in-hospital interviews.

The Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP) community was hopeful of your appointment almost a year ago by President Barack Obama and felt that finally there was to be deliberate dialogue, transparency, community engagement and participation in formulating solutions for environmental issues.

Immediately following the “earthquake” that hit Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, I started seeing reports that the earthquake was not a random occurrence or happenstance. These were the same rumblings I heard following Hurricane Katrina. After the devastation of Katrina I started seeing reports about HAARP, High Frequency Active Auroral Research.

In its comments on the Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard Environmental Impact Report, POWER focused on the carcinogens and radiological contamination at the Shipyard; the dangers of liquefaction; climate change and sea level rise; transportation impacts from the proposed development; the connection of the development to the existing community; and the preservation of historic Ohlone sites.

Sen. Mark Leno's Senate Bill 792 would give clean parkland at Candlestick Point to Lennar and replace it with toxic land. Lennar, the "toxic dust developer," plans to build 10,000 luxury condos at the Hunters Point Shipyard. This toxic trade bill is now in the California Assembly, so calls opposing SB 792 should be made immediately to Fiona Ma, (916) 319-2012, and Tom Ammiano, (916) 319-2013.