Climate change challenges shipyard cleanup
Rising seas could bring contaminated groundwater, toxic chemicals to surface
A report released by the Navy confirmed concerns that for years have been hanging over the radiological cleanup of San Francisco’s Hunters Point Shipyard: that rising seawater levels and other environmental factors resulting from climate change could cause toxic materials that have long been buried at the site to surface.
The study, called Climate Resilience Assessment, was included in an ongoing review process that the Navy must undertake every five years to evaluate its remediation plan for the former shipyard, which has long been a designated Superfund site. The shipyard is also slated for redevelopment into a new neighborhood, with cleaning efforts by the Navy and its contractors underway for more than a decade to prepare it for reuse.
The report is the first time that the Navy has studied the impacts of climate change in relation to the shipyard, which spans hundreds of acres and contains radioactive waste and other contaminants. The agency acknowledged that sea level rise is “the major variable” that “could affect the remedies” that the Navy has been using to clean the site, including capping, or covering, contaminated areas with materials such as asphalt.
Among the climate study’s findings is that, by 2035, two land parcels at the shipyard are vulnerable to contaminated groundwater surfacing caused as well as storm surges, including one referred to as as D-1, where “lowlevel radiological objects were identified in soil” and “may be present at depths greater than 2 feet” below the ground surface. The parcel is located on the southeastern tip of the shipyard property, and juts into the sea.
The climate assessment also found that five more parcels could be similarly impacted by sea level rise by 2065.
The findings could result in federal regulators requiring the Navy to adjust its current remediation methods.
“That’s an area with potential to be concerned about,” Mike Montgomery, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund and emergency management division, said Friday about Parcel D-1, adding that the latest findings “might be something that would be a subject of conversation” regarding updating the Navy’s remediation methods.
Montgomery said that sea level rise is a “significant issue” for the EPA, but added that the report is “not alarming” because the agency has been “anticipating that sea level rise could be a concern, not only for hazardous waste situations, but also for the landfills that are in the bay and the transportation systems.”
However, he said, “We are glad to see that it’s being taken seriously by the Navy.”
For environmental and Bayview Hunters Point community advocates who have pressed the Navy to consider the impacts of climate change on the sweeping remediation effort and future redevelopment project, the report’s findings come as less of a surprise.
“We told you,” said Bradley Angel of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. “We’ve been saying this for years. Now what we really need is for the state Department of Toxic Substance Control to adopt regulatory guidance on considering sea level and groundwater rise.”
Last fall, Greenaction announced its intent to sue the Navy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in federal court over the $1.2 billion cleanup. The group alleges, among other things, that the Navy has missed deadlines for the fiveyear review of its remediation plan; and that the discovery of strontium-90 exceeding the cleanup standard in soil samples taken from a shipyard parcel should trigger the retesting of remediation work that was already completed as part of the larger cleanup. The radioactive isotope, which was found at the shipyard in 2021, is linked to increased risks of bone cancer and leukemia.
During the Cold War, parts of the former shipyard were contaminated by fallout from irradiated ships that were brought to Hunters Point after atomicbomb tests, and radiological research also was carried out there. The Navy, which operated at the shipyard from 1945 to 1974, and other agencies have spent decades trying to remove that contamination. In 2004, regulators declared the hilltop portion of the shipyard to be clean, and hundreds of people now live there in recently developed housing.
In response to the recent climate assessment, Angel said that, in the group’s view, “science being considered for the first time ever” in regard to the shipyard’s existing cleanup plans is a “victory.”
“We’ve got the U.S. EPA, the regional water boards, all saying the same thing,” Angel said. “Now we need to see if they will force the Navy to actually change and improve the process and conduct a much more thorough cleanup — otherwise we’re looking at an environmental and health disaster for the bay and for communities around the shipyard.”
In 2018, the Navy agreed to retest one-third of the areas where remediation work was carried out by Tetra Tech EC over the span of a decade, after the former shipyard contractor was accused of fraud in the cleanup.
Greenaction’s threat of litigation last fall came after the ongoing retesting effort turned up a radioactive object at the shipyard in an area that was previously swept of contamination by Tetra Tech EC — the second such discovery in the span of five years.
The Navy has previously said that objects found in remediated areas did not pose a high risk to the public, and that the discoveries validated the effectiveness of the Navy’s retesting process.
In a statement to the Chronicle on Friday regarding the recent climate study, Michael Pound, environmental coordinator for the Navy’s base closure program at the shipyard, said that the agency’s work at the site is in part guided by a plan the Navy released in 2022 to “proactively address the impacts of climate change while strengthening the nation’s collective security in the face of this challenge.”
“As part of this action plan, NAVFAC Headquarters (HQ) and the BRAC Program Management Office (PMO) have been proactively looking at ways to use the best available science to understand the nature and timing of projected climate hazards at its various installations,” Pound said.
He said that the Navy expects to complete its five-year review in July; and that it will be discussing the climate study with community stakeholders on March 25. KQED first reported on the climate study.
Montgomery, of the EPA, said the climate study’s results could impact planned land transfers between the Navy and city “if there is a need to revisit cleanup decisions.”
The shipyard and adjacent Candlestick Point have been approved for redevelopment into more than 10,000 new homes and millions of square feet of commercial real estate, though the development project is currently paused pending the ongoing retesting effort.
“The Bay Conservation Development Commission would require that the city do sea level rise work in conjunction with their development, so there are going to be a lot of eyes on this property,” Montgomery said.